Maine Genealogy

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Maine Genealogy Research Guide

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Maine Genealogy Research Guide

Quick Facts

Understanding Maine’s jurisdictions is the key to finding its records: for two centuries the crucial custodians have been the individual towns and the sixteen counties, not a single central office. Maine was the District of Maine, part of Massachusetts, until it separated and entered the Union, so a great many pre-1820 records are Massachusetts records.

• Capital: Augusta. The capital was designated in 1827, state government moved there in 1832, and Augusta was fixed as the permanent seat of government by constitutional amendment in 1911.
• Statehood: March 15, 1820, admitted as the 23rd state under the Missouri Compromise (paired with the admission of Missouri), having previously been the District of Maine within Massachusetts.
• Land type: Maine is a state-land state, not a federal public-domain state. There are no U.S. General Land Office (GLO) records for Maine. Original title descended through the Council for New England and proprietary patents, then through the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Province of Massachusetts, and after 1783 through Massachusetts and, later, the State of Maine, which sold and even lotteried off vast tracts of public land.
• Counties: 16. York, the oldest, was organized under Massachusetts on November 20, 1652 (its county government has run continuously since 1636). The last two counties, Knox and Sagadahoc, were both created in 1860; no county has been created since.
• Nickname & motto: the Pine Tree State; motto Dirigo (“I Direct” / “I Lead”).
• Where the records live: vital records are kept at the town level (some towns from the 1600s) and statewide from 1892; deeds are recorded at the county Registry of Deeds; probate is handled by the county Probate Court. Maine towns are unusually important record-keepers, so always identify the town first.

Libraries and Archives

A handful of repositories hold the bulk of Maine’s original and microfilmed records. Start with the state agencies and the leading historical and genealogical collections, then work down to the town and county level.

• Maine State Archives (Augusta) — the central repository for state and county records: pre-1892 town vital returns, statewide vital records from 1892, court records, land office and Eastern Lands records, military rolls, and naturalizations.
• Maine State Library / Digital Maine — published town and family histories, microfilmed newspapers, and a large body of digitized records and finding aids.
• Maine Historical Society and its Brown Research Library (Portland) — the most extensive collection of Maine church records, manuscripts, and proprietors’ papers; its digital arm is the Maine Memory Network.
• National Archives at Boston (Waltham, Massachusetts) — the NARA facility serving Maine, holding federal census microfilm, federal court and naturalization records, and Portland passenger arrival lists.
• The FamilySearch Library and its worldwide FamilySearch Centers hold the largest microfilm and digital collection of Maine town, church, court, land, and probate records.
• Bangor Public Library — strong genealogy and local-history holdings, obituary and cemetery indexes, and city directories for eastern and central Maine.
• The Acadian Archives / Archives acadiennes at the University of Maine at Fort Kent — the premier center for the Franco-American and Acadian people of the Upper St. John Valley, including scanned parish records, family files, and genealogical reference collections.
• The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland Archives — sacramental and administrative records of the Catholic Church in Maine, with individual sacramental records requested through the parish.

Major Websites

These sites host digitized Maine records or statewide indexes. Subscription services are marked ($); the rest are free.

• FamilySearch — free; the backbone finding aid, with digitized town vital records, church, court, land, probate, naturalization, and military collections.
• Ancestry ($) — Maine birth, marriage, death, census, church, land, probate, tax, and military collections.
• MyHeritage ($) — Maine marriage and death indexes and the U.S. federal census.
• Findmypast ($) — includes Maine United States marriage records.
• Maine Memory Network — free; the Maine Historical Society’s statewide digital museum of documents, photographs, and manuscripts.
• Digital Maine — free; the Maine State Library’s digital repository of state documents, Civil War material, newspapers, and adjutant general records.
• Maine Genealogy — free; transcribed and indexed statewide databases, including the state’s marriage and death indexes.
• Chronicling America — free; the Library of Congress archive of digitized historical Maine newspapers.
• Internet Archive and HathiTrust — free; digitized Maine town histories, deed volumes, law books, adjutant general reports, and court records.
• Find a Grave and BillionGraves — free; cemetery listings, headstone photographs, and transcriptions.
• Maine Old Cemetery Association (MOCA) — free; transcriptions and burial data for thousands of Maine cemeteries.

Law and Government

Because Maine was governed as part of Massachusetts until 1820, its early statutes and court practice are those of colonial and provincial Massachusetts; the Laws of Massachusetts were carried over as the Laws of Maine at separation. Digitized statute books and published court records explain what records were created and why.

• Province and Court Records of Maine — the multi-volume edition of Maine’s earliest court records, beginning in 1636; free on the Internet Archive and cataloged at HathiTrust.
• The Massachusetts-era Maine land and legislative records — the Eastern Lands Papers and related resolves — are held by the Massachusetts Archives.
• Digitized Maine session laws, resolves, and legislative reports are available at Digital Maine.
• The early Laws of Maine and the revised statutes of the nineteenth century are digitized on the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, and Google Books.

Vital Records (Birth, Marriage, Death)

Statewide civil registration of births, marriages, and deaths began in Maine on January 1, 1892, when a comprehensive vital-statistics system took effect; from that point records are fuller, giving parents’ names, occupations, and birthplaces. Before 1892 registration was a town responsibility — a few towns such as Kittery, York, and Wells kept records in the 1600s, and more than 200 towns recorded events during the 1700s — and an 1864 law directed town clerks to forward returns to the state. Access to recent records is governed by statutory waiting periods, and a fee applies for certified copies from the state or a town office.

• Pre-1892 town returns: originals remain with town clerks, and copies gathered by the state are at the Maine State Archives — free — including the index to the pre-1892 records of the towns that responded when the state requested copies.
• Statewide records (from 1892): the Maine State Archives holds the earliest statewide originals and microfilm; more recent records are administered by the Maine Vital Records office (free to consult; a fee applies for copies).
• Maine Vital Records, 1670–1921: free on FamilySearch — the largest online set of digitized Maine births, marriages, and deaths, including pre-1892 town records and delayed returns.
• Births: Maine Birth Records, 1715–1922 ($); a free index, Maine Births and Christenings, is also on FamilySearch.
• Marriages: Maine Marriage Records, 1713–1922 ($) and the Maine Marriage Index, 1670–1921 ($), also as Maine Marriages ($) on MyHeritage; a free marriage index is at Maine Genealogy.
• Deaths: Maine Death Records, 1761–1922 ($) and Maine Deaths ($) on MyHeritage; a free death index is also at Maine Genealogy.

History and Timeline of Major Events

Maine’s shifting jurisdiction — proprietary province, part of Massachusetts, then separate state — determines where a given record was created and where it is now kept. These are the dates that matter most for research:

• 1607 — the English Popham Colony is founded at the mouth of the Kennebec River; it is abandoned in 1608.
• 1622 — the Council for New England grants the Province of Maine to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason.
• 1629–1631 — a series of proprietary patents (Kennebec/Plymouth, Lygonia, Muscongus/Waldo, Pemaquid) carve up the coast.
• 1652 — Massachusetts Bay annexes the settlements and organizes York County (November 20).
• 1677 — the Massachusetts government purchases Maine from the Gorges heirs.
• 1760 — York County is divided, creating Cumberland and Lincoln counties as settlement pushes east.
• 1775–1783 — Maine men serve in Massachusetts units in the Revolution; the Penobscot Expedition fails in 1779.
• 1786 — Massachusetts begins disposing of Maine’s public lands by sale and lottery, leading to the Bingham Purchase.
• 1820 — Maine separates from Massachusetts and becomes the 23rd state (March 15) under the Missouri Compromise; Portland is the first capital.
• 1827–1832 — Augusta is designated capital (1827) and state government relocates there (1832).
• 1838–1839 — the bloodless Aroostook War flares over the disputed northern boundary.
• 1842 — the Webster–Ashburton Treaty fixes the Maine–New Brunswick boundary.
• 1860 — Knox and Sagadahoc, the last counties, are created, bringing the total to 16.
• 1861–1865 — Maine sends large numbers of men to the Civil War; on July 2, 1863, Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain’s 20th Maine holds the extreme left of the Union line at Little Round Top.
• 1892 — statewide registration of births, marriages, and deaths begins (January 1).

Census Records and Substitutes

Federal population schedules survive for Maine from 1790 through 1950 and are the backbone of nineteenth-century research. Because Maine was part of Massachusetts before 1820, the National Archives nonetheless catalogs the earliest schedules under Maine. Maine took essentially no regular decennial state census; only a limited 1837 enumeration survives, so census substitutes matter more here than in many states.

• Federal censuses, 1790–1950: free on FamilySearch; also searchable on Ancestry ($) and MyHeritage ($).
• 1790–1810 (District of Maine): enumerated as part of Massachusetts but cataloged under Maine; York County is incomplete in 1800, and about half of Oxford County is missing in 1810.
• 1820: the first census taken after statehood; the Houlton Plantation returns for Washington County are missing.
• 1837 Maine state census: a special enumeration of heads of household taken March 1, 1837, tied to the distribution of state surplus and school funds; only portions survive, chiefly Portland, Bangor, and some unincorporated townships and plantations, browsable at Digital Maine (free).
• 1890: the federal schedules for Maine were almost entirely destroyed, so substitutes are essential for that decade.
• Census substitutes: the 1798 federal direct tax (for surviving Maine towns), city directories (Portland from the 1820s), and town tax lists all help bridge gaps between and within census years.

Church Records

Because statewide registration is late, church records are often the best substitute for vital records before 1892. Historically the largest denominations in Maine were the Congregational (the established church of the Massachusetts colonial era), Baptist, Methodist, and Roman Catholic churches, with significant Quaker, Universalist, and Unitarian congregations; Catholicism was especially strong among Irish and French-Canadian and Acadian communities.

• Maine Church Records — free on FamilySearch; baptisms, marriages, and burials from many denominations, with direct links by denomination and county.
• Roman Catholic: the Diocese of Portland Archives holds sacramental and parish records for the Catholic Church in Maine; French-Canadian parish records also appear in the Drouin Collection on Ancestry ($).
• Congregational and Society of Friends (Quaker): many original and manuscript registers are held by the Maine Historical Society and searchable through the Maine Memory Network (free).
• Franco-American and Acadian parishes: scanned sacramental records and extensive French-Canadian genealogical references are at the Acadian Archives (free).

Court Records

Maine’s courts have created some of its richest genealogical evidence — not only lawsuits but naturalizations, divorces, name changes, and administrative matters. The system evolved from the colonial and provincial Massachusetts courts to the modern state judiciary.

• Colonial and provincial courts: the earliest tribunals of the Province of Maine and York County, from 1636, are published in the Province and Court Records of Maine, free on the Internet Archive.
• Court of Common Pleas: handled most civil suits from the colonial period into the early statehood era.
• Supreme Judicial Court: Maine’s highest court, with county-level civil, criminal, and equity records dating from the early 1800s.
• Superior and District Courts: later trial courts that assumed much of the civil and criminal caseload.
• Custody: the Maine State Archives holds surviving early county and state court records; see Maine Court Records for what has been microfilmed and digitized.

Ethnic and Minority Records

Maine’s population reflects its Indigenous nations, a founding English Yankee stock, and later Irish, French-Canadian, Acadian, and other arrivals, along with a small but historically significant African American community. Knowing where a group settled points to the records most likely to document a family.

• Wabanaki Confederacy. The Penobscot Nation is centered at Indian Island near Old Town; the Passamaquoddy at Pleasant Point (Sipayik) and Indian Township; the Houlton Band of Maliseet near Houlton; and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs (Mi’kmaq) near Presque Isle. Records appear in Maine State Archives collections, mission and church registers, and federal agency records.
• French-Canadian and Acadian. The largest ethnic presence, concentrated in the St. John Valley (Madawaska, Fort Kent, Van Buren), Lewiston–Auburn, and Biddeford. The Acadian Archives at the University of Maine at Fort Kent is the leading center.
• Irish. Mid-nineteenth-century arrivals, many by way of Canada and the Maritimes, settled in Portland, Bangor, and the mill towns and are documented largely in Catholic parish and naturalization records.
• African Americans. A long-rooted community, notably Portland’s Abyssinian congregation and the history of Malaga Island; the Abyssinian church records are digitized by the Congregational Library & Archives.

Immigration and Naturalization

Portland was a significant Atlantic port and a winter port for Canadian traffic, and many Maine ancestors entered overland from Canada rather than by ship. Naturalization was a two-step process — a declaration of intention, then a petition — that before 1906 could occur in almost any court, and from 1906 followed a standardized federal form.

• Portland passenger arrivals: lists from 1893 are held by the National Archives at Boston and on microfilm at FamilySearch; Maine Arriving and Departing Passenger and Crew Lists ($) covers the port on Ancestry.
• Canadian border crossings (St. Albans District): the St. Albans lists record entries from Canada across the northern border, including into Maine, from 1895; Border Crossings from Canada to the U.S. ($) on Ancestry, with a free index on FamilySearch.
• Federal naturalizations: Maine Federal Naturalization Records, 1787–1991 ($).
• County and state naturalizations: free county naturalization records and the New England petitions for naturalization are on FamilySearch, and the National Archives at Boston holds the federal naturalizations.

Land Records

Maine’s land history is unusually layered, and identifying the great patents and purchases is often essential to tracing early title. As a state-land state, Maine has no General Land Office records: original title flowed from the Council for New England and proprietary grants, through the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Province of Massachusetts, and after 1783 through Massachusetts and the State of Maine, which sold enormous tracts of wild land. Deeds are recorded at the county Registry of Deeds; the Maine State Archives holds the state land office and Eastern Lands records, and the Massachusetts Archives holds the Massachusetts-era Maine land records.

• Kennebec Purchase (Plymouth Patent / Kennebec Proprietors): traced to a 1629 Council for New England grant on both sides of the Kennebec River and revived by Boston proprietors after 1749; the proprietors’ records are documented through the Maine Historical Society.
• Pejepscot Purchase: a 1714 group that bought a claim tracing to a 1684 deed and laid out Brunswick and Topsham.
• Waldo Patent (Muscongus / Lincolnshire Patent): a 1630 grant that became the Waldo Patent under Samuel Waldo from 1720 and, in part, the later Bingham Purchase.
• Bingham Purchase: two vast tracts acquired by the Philadelphia banker William Bingham after the 1786 Massachusetts land lottery — Bingham’s Kennebec Purchase of roughly 1,128,000 acres in the upper Kennebec valley and Bingham’s Penobscot Purchase of roughly 1,107,000 acres between the Penobscot and St. Croix rivers.
• Pemaquid Patent: a 1631 grant covering the important early settlement and trading post at Pemaquid.
• Massachusetts and Maine public-land sales: after 1783 the Committee for the Sale of Eastern Lands surveyed and sold the unorganized townships, and these Eastern Lands records are shared between the Maine State Archives and the Massachusetts Archives.
• Online: Maine land and property records are free on FamilySearch, and FamilySearch Full-Text Search makes many unindexed deeds and patents searchable by every name they contain, including grantors, grantees, and witnesses.

Military Records

Maine men appear in every American conflict from the colonial wars forward, first in Massachusetts units and, after 1820, in Maine regiments. Service abstracts, adjutant general reports, and pension records identify units, residences, and family details.

• Colonial wars: the French and Indian wars on the Maine frontier and the Louisbourg expeditions; records are largely within the Massachusetts provincial military records.
• Revolution and War of 1812: Maine men served in Massachusetts Continental and militia units (the Penobscot Expedition, 1779); the Maine State Archives holds militia and War of 1812 rolls, and Revolutionary War bounty-land applications are digitized free on FamilySearch.
• Civil War: Maine raised numerous regiments, most famously the 20th Maine at Gettysburg; the adjutant general’s reports and Civil War correspondence are digitized at Digital Maine (free), and the Maine State Archives holds enlistment and service records.
• Compiled service: Maine Compiled Military Records, 1812–1865 ($).
• World War I and later: Maine service-record and draft-registration indexes and grave cards are on FamilySearch and at the Maine State Archives.

Probate Records

Probate records — wills, administrations of intestate estates, and guardianships of minors — establish relationships and property transfers and are among the most valuable pre-1892 sources. In Maine, probate is a county function handled by the Probate Court and the Register of Probate; for the earliest period it was a Massachusetts matter.

• County Probate Courts: each county’s Register of Probate holds wills, administrations, and guardianships; York County, the oldest, has probate records reaching back to the 1680s.
• Maine County Probate Records: images of county probate books, with content and dates varying by county, are free on FamilySearch.
• Earliest wills: William M. Sargent’s compiled abstracts of the earliest Maine wills are digitized free on the Internet Archive.
• Maine Wills and Probate Records: Maine Wills and Probate Records, 1584–1999 ($), name-searchable across most counties.
• Full-text search: FamilySearch Full-Text Search indexes many wills and estate files by every name they contain.

Tax Records

Tax lists place a family in a specific town and year and are valuable substitutes where censuses or deeds are missing; several consecutive years can reveal when a young man came of age, moved, or died and left heirs. Maine’s tax records run from the colonial Massachusetts valuation lists through town assessments and federal tax lists.

• 1798 federal direct tax: the Massachusetts and Maine direct tax lists real property and dwellings for surviving towns; the originals are held by the New England Historic Genealogical Society and imaged at American Ancestors ($).
• Federal IRS assessment lists, 1862–1918: U.S. IRS Tax Assessment Lists, 1862–1918 ($); the earliest of these assessment lists are also free (as images) on FamilySearch.
• Colonial and Massachusetts-era lists: the 1771 Massachusetts valuation list and related records are held by the Massachusetts Archives.
• Town and state tax records: personal-property and land-tax lists survive in town offices and at the Maine State Archives; see Maine Taxation on FamilySearch.