Marcel, the pastoral leadership of the earliest Rusyn churches in America was usually quick to change and anything but stable. Even if a church existed in an area doesn't mean the sacramental records for people living in the same town are necessarily going to be found in that church. There were times one church was without a pastor and the priest of a neighboring church would also care temporarily for the vacant church. Whether he recorded sacraments in the vacant church's register or his own parish's register can only be determined by checking both. And sometimes that happened not in an expected place but in the records of another church many miles away.

Anyway, St. Mary's GC Church in Kingston predated St. Mary's / Holy Resurrection in Wilkes-Barre and due to the situation that arose in the 1890s around the pastorate and ecclesial affiliation of the W-B church, one can find in the Kingston books plenty of entries for people living in W-B and environs. It was just across the Susquehanna River, but there were so many immigrant Rusyns living in both places, more than one church was needed and each developed its own identity -- and issues.

See one of my blog posts for the chronology of Rusyn parish foundations in the USA through 1900:

https://rusynsofpa.blogspot.com/2015/07/chronology-of-carpatho-rusyn-churches.html

(Thanks, Tom Peters, for the shout-out!)

Thank you and thank you for your replies.  I do have a follow-up question, during my research, I read somewhere but don't remember that most of these Greek Catholic/ Byzantine/ Russian Orthodox churches churches were relatively new or were created as more and more immigrants were moving into many of these areas mentioned during the late 1890s and early 1900s. Would anyone know where many of the earlier Greek Catholic/Byzantine Eastern European immigrants (before 1890 ) went to to church if these other known churches came well after they arrived?  Just wondering cause most of my great grandparents and great-great grandparents came between 1885 and 1887.  

Welcome to the forum.

My grandparents emigrated from Austria Hungary to Scranton then Dunmore. There children born here were baptized at St John's Byzantine church  Broadway. St Scranton. It is closed and I have been trying to find out where the records went. Possibly st Mary's in Scranton. Later my grand father was involved  with founding st Michael church in Dunmore. 

Sharon

Hello Everyone, 

I am new here and this is my first post.  I have been doing some extensive research on maternal ancestors for several years. Between 1883 -1900, several of my Slovak/Rusyn ancestors have come from what was then Zemplen and Szepes counties, Austria-Hungary. 

Their surnames were Koczo, Durkoth, Hricko, Racz. and Milyo. I recently discovered that they came from villages of Ruske (Koczo and Durkot), Male Ozorovce (Racz), Backov (Milyo) and migrated to  the Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Munroe Counties (Scranton, Taylor, Pittston, and Stroudsburg) where they worked in the mines.

They sort of bounced around from town to town before settling elsewhere.  Lately, I have been focused on two of my great-grandparents, Michael Koczo and Anna Durkot(h), who have both come from the village of Ruske, which no longer exist today due to the construction of the Starina Reservoir.  I've learned that they both came to the U.S. separately, Michael in 1886 and Anna in 1887, and they were married somewhere in the Lackawanna/Luzerne counties. 

From Ancestry, I was able to learn the whereabouts of four of the six of my grandfather's previously unknown siblings that were born and died in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area according to at least two of the church records in those areas: St Mary's Greek Catholic Church (1892-1908) and Holy Resurrection Russian Orthodox Church (1889 - 1907) in Wilkes Barre.  

I'm still trying to locate two of my grandfather's unknown siblings that were not listed in the two churches mentions but can only speculate that they may have been born and or died some time before 1889 or between 1896-1900 as my great-grandparents were married sometime between 1887 and 1888 or the remaining surviving siblings were born in 1900 and later.  It is possible that  these two siblings were born somewhere else as my great-grandparents have moved around in those areas.

My question is for those who are familiar with these towns in the Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Munroe county areas: were there any other Greek Catholic/Byzantine/Russian Orthodox churches that existed in these towns before 1889?  I just thinking  which other churches my great-grandparents may have belong to during their time there.  I tried googling for other churches in those areas but didn't see anything.  Just wondering.