Most important is the currently out of print, 135 pp., paperbound Preliminary Survey of the Documents in the Archives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska (Boulder, Colorado: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 1974) by Barbara Sweetland Smith.
Note: Parish records in the archive are on 11 reels of microfilm, available for loan or purchase. Plans are to develop a complete microfilm set of the Russian Orthodox American Messenger from the Alaska Archive, the Library of Congress materials, and holdings at the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere. A contemplated second edition of the Preliminary Survey would serve as a guide to all of this material also (including a list of Messenger articles on Alaska).
Restriction: All original materials are closed to researchers; microfilm available (see above).
Journal. Kept by the priest to keep his superiors informed of his activities, the journal might cover only mission headquarters duties or it might also extend to travel among the parishioners. Particularly important is the journal of Father Jacob Netsvetov, 1845–53.
Journal of Worship Services. A record of the priests' official work, by the late 19th c. this type of journal was predominant. One example of the genre is Igumen Amfilokhii's record of his missionary work in the Chukchi region of Siberia, 1909–10.
School Journals. In the 1880s (post-Russian times) the parish school was the only educational institution in many outlying areas. The school year ran from November to April or May; instruction was in church law, Russian, English, calligraphy, geography, and arithmetic.
Vedomost' (Church Register). Included a physical description and brief history of the parish, its churches and chapels, and a biography of all clerical staff members. Equally important were its list of mission villages and their religious and social composition as well as cartographic and travel information.
Metrical Records. Accounts (annual) of births, baptisms (including adults), marriages, and deaths in the mission's jurisdiction. The name, social status, tribe, residence, and age of the parties involved appear in these records. After 1867 this type of document generally disappeared, though one large ledger of marriage inquests from the American period provides valuable genealogical data.
Confessional Lists. These records listed all village Inhabitants in the parish, indicated if they were Christian, and even detailed the number of those receiving communion. Appended was a list of new converts, by village. Note: Both the Confessional Record and the Metrical Records often contain the sort of personal commentary more frequent in a priest's Journal.
Financial Accounts. An inventory of church/ chapel property or general capital, annual income from candle sales and purchase of supplies, general income and expenses (usually by the month), clerical salaries, and donations/ contributions.
Correspondence. See further under Finding Aids.
Miscellaneous Records. These include fragments, undated items, recent (post-1935) documents, manuscript fragments in the Yupik language, some material relating to Siberia, and one piece predating the mission's founding—instructions on marriage by Bishop Innocent in 1841.
