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Welcome to the Genealogy Trails website for Sitka, Alaska

Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and
placing it online for the free use of all researchers. This is a continuation of our original Illinois Trails History and Genealogy Project and we are excited about this opportunity to expand into other states.
We welcome your feedback and comments, and of course, your data contributions. If you have transcribed data that
you would like to have posted on this website, please send it to us.
If you would like to be kept informed of our state and county website updates, subscribe to our mailing lists
This Site is Available for Adoption!
We are looking for a coordinator for this site.... folks who share our dedication to putting data online and are
interested in helping this project be as helpful and useful to researchers as it can be. If you are interested
in joining our group as host of this site, view our Volunteer Page
for further information and contact Kim.
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Founded 1799
Incorporated December 2, 1971

Sitka, a unified city-borough, is located on the west coast of Baranof Island fronting the Pacific Ocean, in the
Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean (part of the Alaska Panhandle) on Sitka Sound. An extinct volcano, Mount
Edgecumbe, rises 3,200 feet above the community. It is 95 air miles southwest of Juneau, and 185 miles northwest
of Ketchikan. Seattle, Washington lies 862 air miles to the south. The community lies at approximately 57.053060°
North Latitude and -135.330000° (West) Longitude. (Sec. 36, T055S, R063E, Copper River Meridian.) Sitka is
located in the Sitka Recording District. The area encompasses 2,874.0 sq. miles of land and 1,937.5 sq. miles of
water. January temperatures range from 23 to 35; summers vary from 48 to 61. Average annual precipitation is 96
inches, including 39 inches of snowfall.
Sitka is the state's fourth-largest city in terms of population and the nation's largest city in terms of area.

A view of Sitka's Crecent Harbor, Indian River valley
and, in the background, The Sisters.
Picture from wikipedia.org
The name Sitka (derived from Sheet’ká, a contraction of the Tlingit name Shee At'iká) means "People
on the Outside of Shee," Sheet’-ká X'áat'l (often expressed simply as Shee) being the Tlingit
name for Baranof Island. The town is sometimes referred to as "Sitka-by-the-Sea."
[Info from Alaska Division of Community Advocacy and wikipedia.org]
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Haida
Totem Pole
from Library
of Congress
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