Talk:Alaska Church Records

This is a very good article on Alaska Native Records. I would just add a little information. I lived on the Kuskoquim River for two years in Akiachak. I established the public and school library combination in the villiage of Akiachak, Akiak, and Tuleksak. These three villages along with many of the natives living in Bethel comprise the heart of the Yupik or in their language Yupiit Eskimo group. In fact they call it the Yupiit Nation. This is the area where the Russian Orthodox Church Mission first came in. There are still Russian Orthodox Churches in each village. When Alaska was getting many churches wanting to establish missions a large meeting was held and they divided up the areas in Alaska and assigned churches their territory to keep from competing with each other. The Moravians were assigned the area of the Kuskoquim River and the Presbyterians were assigned the North Slope. I spent 7 years on the North Slope and was privileged as Branch President to get the northern most LDS Church in the world built at that time in Pt. Barrow, Alaska. That occurred in 1992 and 1993. At that time there were six denominations in Barrow. The oldest being the Presbyterian. The North Slope Borough (County to us)and the local Native Corp. were collecting all kinds of history and genealogy of the their people. Most of their genealogy was oral from their early days but they are collecting all they can from their Elders. I established the first college and public library in Pt. Barrow and we were cooperating on the history projects. The North Slope Eskimos are Inupiat and over in Canada they are called Inuit. The Inupiat's can converse in their own language with the Eskimo Natives of Greenland and Iceland. However, they cannot converse with the Yupik or the other three Eskimo groups in Alaska. The Yupik's can converse in their own language with those from Russia. I am exploring the availability of some of these native records.