My grandfather worked for the Great Northern Railway so I thought I would try to get some information about him and/or it. I received this communication back. Thought it might be helpful to those of you are involved in a similar search. I did receive permission from the sender to circulate the e-mail below. Subj: Re: Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen 1929-1960 Date: 8/19/99 8:57:58 AM Pacific Daylight Time From: arv@spot.Colorado.EDU (Archives) Reply-to: arv@spot.Colorado.EDU (Archives) To: BOSWELLGR@aol.com Dear Ms. Petrucci: While I might be mistaken, it seems unlikely that your paternal Grandfather would have been in the BRT, as "clerks" had their own union. This union was the Order of Railroad Clerks of America (1899-1919), the Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight handlers, Express and Station Employees (1919-1967), and The Brotherhood of Railway, Airline, and Steamship Clerks, Freight handlers, Express and Station Employees (1967-?). Currently, after 20 years of union mergers, this union may be part of either the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (which contains some clerks), or the United Transportation Union. Unfortunately, our BRT Collection consists almost entirely of grievance files and cases, and while it does list union members submitting grievances, it is not a nationwide list. Yours is one of many genealogical requests regarding the BRT received recently. I should advise you that while genealogical research into labor union records is becoming more common in recent years, the most profitable labor collections for genealogical purposes are local records. You may know this, but Labor Unions are generally bureaucratic in their structure, with local unions reporting to districts, districts reporting to regions, and regions reporting to the international headquarters. Each level deals with a particular range of duties and concerns. Locals keep the records of their dues paying membership, keep minutes of their meetings, and in the last 40-50 years, develop greivance, health and insurance files on their membership. Usually, policy, strike, financial, and other larger concerns occupy regional, district, and international offices. Hence, you need to find out the locals of which interest you. Once you find out where your subjects worked and which locals they belonged to, then you can start looking for the local papers. I have found local records from Wisconsin and New York, but that does not mean other locals are not deposited in a university archives. You may wish to contact the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers or the United Transportation Union, as several railroad unions merged to form the UTU. BLE or UTU locals may still hold old BRT files. Our BRT papers are from a general adjustment committee and contain grievance files from the 1920s-the 1960s. Unfortunately, the guide is chronological and lists no names. I am uncertain whether these records would repay the cost of a trip across the country to Colorado. Respectfully, David M. Hays, Instructor/Archivist On Mon, 9 Aug 1999 BOSWELLGR@aol.com wrote: > I am doing a genealogy search on my paternal grandfather. I have established > that he was a clerk for the Great Northern Railway Company in 1912 in > Alexandria, MN. He lived a long while in Chicago and moved to California > between 1917 and 1920. His death certification says he worked 42 years for > the steam railroad. > > Is there anyway to access the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen files? Do you > have a for fee researcher? > > Thank you in advance for your kind reply. > > Tamara Petrucci > boswellgr@aol.com