PARISH PROFILE:  St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Tacoma, Wash. Published in the September 2014 edition of the Orthodox Observer, page 21 Following are excerpts regarding the history of this parish which began in 1924: The first Greek Orthodox Christians who formed the basis of the community arrived in the Tacoma area beginning about 1901 to escape poverty and being conscripted in the Ottoman Turkish army, a parish history noted. The small number of single men worked in railroad construction, lumber mills or the docks.  Tacoma is a port city near the southern end of Puget Sound. (The first known Greek who visited the Pacific Northwest was Apostolos Valerianos, also known as Ioannis Phocas, of Cephalonia, and better known by his Spanish name, Juan de Fuca, a maritime pilot serving King Philip II of Spain in the late 1500s.  He explored the strait that separates Vancouver Island, British Columbia, from the Olympic Peninsula of northwestern Washington, whic...

The digital collections of the Greek State Archives offer a wealth of information to those of us interested in Greek genealogy.  As part of their online collection is the "Election Material From the Collection of Vlachoyiannis" .  This includes "General Election Lists" for each Municipality; recorded by community (city, village, settlement, etc.). You can view a scanned copy of each list, printed in the Greek language.  This is a GREAT resource, but very difficult to navigate for those who do not read Greek.  Each row includes:  Line # -  Given Name, Surname - Father's Name -  Age - Occupation. I have translated these pages and made them available in both Greek and English, doing my best to transcribe the information accurately.  I would always recommend viewing the original scanned copies (link below).    - To the best of my knowledge, these lists include all Males who were eligible to vote i...