Alaska genealogy records

Births and deaths

Certificates are held by the Alaska Health Analytics and Vital Records Section. As of 2026, the federal list of state vital records offices gives the fee as $30 for a certified birth or death certificate and $25 for each additional copy of the same record ordered at the same time, and every request must include a copy of the applicant's picture ID. Check the office's own fee page before you order, since fees change.

Alaska law sets when these records become public. Under AS 18.50.310(f), once 100 years have passed after a birth, or 50 years after a death, marriage, divorce, dissolution of marriage, or annulment, the records of these events held by the state registrar become public records open to inspection and copying.

Because many early events were never registered, a missing certificate is common. Look next at church records, newspaper notices, and cemetery and obituary indexes held at the Alaska State Library.

Marriages and divorces

The state office lists marriage records from the 1890s, with the same warning that many events before 1930 were never registered, and the same $30 fee as of 2026. State divorce records start in 1950. Under AS 18.50.310(f), marriage and divorce records held by the state registrar become public 50 years after the event.

For earlier marriages and divorces, newspaper indexes are often the best route. The State Library's genealogy guide lists an index of births, deaths, marriages, and divorces reported in Fairbanks newspapers from 1903 to 1930, abstracts of vital records reported in the weekly Douglas Island newspaper from 1898 to 1922, and abstracts from the Alaska Daily Empire of Juneau for 1916 to 1936.

Russian Orthodox church records

The Russian Orthodox Church kept its own registers in Alaska. Many of the church's Alaska records are at the Library of Congress, and the University of Alaska Anchorage Consortium Library has more than 400 reels of microfilm copies, with a separate name index to the vital statistics records. Copies of most reels are also at the Loussac Library of the Anchorage Public Library, the Alaska State Library in Juneau, and the Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and reels can be borrowed through interlibrary loan.

Most of these records are in Russian or Church Slavonic and have not been translated, so you may need help reading them. They are not a complete set of the church's records, and the Diocese of Alaska may know of others.

Census records

Alaska was not enumerated in the 1870 census even though it was already part of the United States. Census data for Alaska begin with 1880. The Alaska State Library has the 1900, 1910, and 1920 censuses on microfilm. They are arranged by enumeration district, within the Southern and Northern Districts in 1900 and within the four judicial districts in 1910 and 1920. A Soundex name index exists for 1900 and 1920 but not for 1910.

Courts, probate, and naturalization

The State Library's genealogy guide points to the Alaska State Archives for official state records, probate, and court records. The Archives' published Guide to Probate Records for Alaska, 1885 to 1960, compiles docket entries, journal indexes, case files, and fee collection reports.

Federal court records are at the National Archives at Seattle, which holds records of the federal courts in Alaska. Naturalizations from the U.S. District Courts in Alaska for 1900 to 1924 are on National Archives microfilm M1539.

Federal records and land

The National Archives is digitizing the records of its former Alaska Region, including a register of final homestead receipts from the Circle land office, 1899 to 1931. Some Alaska series contain personal information about living people. Digitized records with such information are not posted in the National Archives Catalog until they are reviewed and redacted, but series marked Digitized but Restricted can be requested from the National Archives at Seattle. Some series, such as village census rolls from 1935 to 1972, are released only 100 years after the date of the record. The same project page links to Alaska records digitized by FamilySearch.

Newspapers and published sources

The Alaska State Library's Historical Collections in Juneau, open 10 AM to 4 PM on weekdays, hold many indexes built from newspapers, including Patricia Roppel's index of obituaries of Alaskans from 1899 to 1995 and indexes to the Anchorage Times. Biographical works such as Biographies of Alaska-Yukon Pioneers 1850 to 1950 draw on newspaper obituaries and cite their sources. The guide Alaska Newspapers on Microfilm, 1866 to 1998, lists Alaska newspapers on microfilm in Alaska libraries by title and by place.