AEMI

MARIA JARLSDOTTER ENCKELL
local Russian Orthodox community
were identified and published on the
Genealogical Society of Finland’s internet
site as a still ongoing work-in-progress
(Enckell 2007). Here the attempt
was to identify Lutherans who had chosen
to marry into Russian Alaska’s Russian
Orthodox community, many of the
brides being Creoles, Indians or Native
Russians, and thereby expose the structure
of families some Finlanders created
for themselves, concentrated notably on
Kodiak Island. Note: I have not done
such a searched for the Balts as I’m still
unable to properly identify them by
name.
2009: the Grinëv-Enckell collaboration
resulted in a total of 572 documented
as well as partially identified
and now published Finlanders, and
an additional 100+ Balts identified by
name. All of them provided with short
biographical data, however only indicating
the year of birth and that of death if
known to the author, lacking what’s so
very important concerning the identity
of all Finlanders: the much needed information
pinpointing for birth and death
not only the year but also the exact day
and month, rarely with any reference
to the parents listing their names and
their social status (Grinëv 2009). Of the
5900+ names published the Lutherans
consisted of an estimated 10 per cent +.
However this list does by no means include
every Finlander and Balt known,
2011: a longer list of Finlanders were
identified by name and professions
(Grinëv 2011),
2012: a number of Finnish sea captains
in the Company service have been
identified with in-dept-biographical and
professional records (Enckell 2012c).
87
2012: a list of Company hired medical
doctors serving on Company ships,
or stationed at Sitka and/or at Port Ajan
(on the shores of the Okhotsk Sea):
the majority Baltic Germans (Enckell
2012a).
If all these individuals were added
together the final number of Lutherans
in Russian American Company service
would still be far from accurate, as
new names are continuing to pop up
in innumerable old records quite unexpectedly
scattered in archival records
at many sites around the world. And as
usual, some categories/groups of individuals
are as usual missing/left out in
these records.
The Invisibles
In all these listings, the previously referred
to rarely if ever mentioned household
servants are one of those truly
missing ones in most all available records.
Therefore they are also of the greatest interest.
Most civilian men of a certain social
standing, and military officers of all
ranks, had a manservant whose task was
to keep his master’s clothing and other
personal affairs under his thumb, ready,
clean and in order at any time, and at
Sitka cook their master’s breakfast, supper
and evening tee (Enckell 1996:23).
Additionally, they were expected to follow
their masters as shadows wherever
their masters went, including travel over
land and across the seas. The same was
true for women, both married and unmarried,
of a certain civilian standing.
These women would never dream of
walking out of house alone or travel anywhere
without a chamber-maid in tow.
At the time it was also quite unthinkable
that a governor would himself take