Alaska Colonial Records

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Colonial Records

Online Records

• 1816-1959- Alaska, Vital Records. Index and images.
• 1816-1917- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Sitka (Alaska). Mostly digitized.
• 1824-1913- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Unalaska (Alaska). Images only.
• 1826-1918- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Kodiak (Alaska). Images only.
• 1828-1898- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Atka (Alaska). Images only.
• 1842-1923- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. St. Paul (Alaska). Images only.
• 1842-1931- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Nushagak (Alaska). Images only.
• 1845-1917- Parish registers. Alaska, Russian Orthodox Church records. Images only.
• 1845-1933- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Kenai (Alaska). Images only.
• 1845-1936- Parish registers. Russian Orthodox Church. Ikogmiut (Alaska). Images only.
• 1857-1863- Metrical books. Images, and some indexed. Transcripts of Evangelical-Lutheran Church records (births, marriages, deaths) for German-Russians of Russian-American Colony (aka Russisch-Amerikanische Kolonie, Russkai︠a︡-Amerikanskai︠a︡ Kolonii︠a︡), Sitka, Alaska. Text in German.
• 1802-1867- Records of the Russian-American Company. Some digitized images, the rest are on microfilm.

History

European contact with Alaska occurred in the early to mid-18th century although contact could have happened in the mid-17th century. Explorers and expeditions from Russia were among the first known contact. During the late 18th century, Spanish expeditions were made up the Pacific to Alaska to assert their claims to the Pacific Northwest, and during the early 19th century, the Russians began to colonize under the Russian-American Company and built a capital on Baranof Island. Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867.

Resources

Russian Colonization

• Documents on the history of Russian - American Company translated by Marina Ramsey; edited by Richard A. Pierce. (Kingston, Ontario : Limestone, 1976).
• A Guide to the Russian holdings in the Alaska Historical Library by Alaska Historical Library. (Juneau, Alaska : Alaska Division of State Libraries, 1971).
• Records of the Russian-American Company, 1802, 1817-1867 : National Archives microfilm publications pamphlet describing M11 by Raymond H. Fisher. (Washington, D.C. : National Archives & Records Administration, 1971).
• Russian America : the great Alaskan venture, 1741-1867 by Hector Chevingny. (New York, New York : Viking Press, 1965).
• The other Russians : documenting: the Finns and Baltic Evangelical Lutherans, their parish and parishioners in Russian Alaska and the Pacific Siberian Rim as revealed in published and unpublished letters and diaries by Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, David A. Meier, and Gail Hales : introduction by Michael Meier edited by Ray Hudson. (Salt Lake City, Utah : Filmed by the Genealogical Society of Utah, 2000).
• The Russian population in Alaska and California : late 18th century-1867 by Svetlana G. Fedorova ; translated and edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly. (Kingston, Ontario : Limestone, 1973).
• Imperial Russia in frontier America : the changing geography of supply of Russian America, 1784-1867 by James R. Gibson. (New York, New York : Oxford University Press, 1976).
• Russian refuge : Religion, migration and settlement on the North American Pacific Rim by Susan Wiley Hardwick. (Chicago, Illinois : University of Chicago Press, 1993).
• The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741-1867 by Andrei Val'terovich Grinev. (Lincoln, Nebraska : University of Nebraska Press, 2005).