While searching for
Maine indexes, I came across links to a collection on Ancestry called "
Maine Marriages, 1743-1891."
It looks like the database has been removed, but was once available on ancestry. Are there plans to reinstate this database? It would be extremely useful!
Thanks.
It links to:
http://www.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=7868&cj=1&am...Source Information:
Maryann
Flaherty and Liahona Research, comp. Maine Marriages, 1743-1891 [database online]. Provo, Utah: MyFamily.com, Inc., 2004. Original data: Index compiled from county marriage records on microfilm located at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City,
Utah by Liahona Research (P.O. Box 740,
Orem,
Utah 84059) and from records located at the
Maine State Archives by Maryann
Flaherty. Specific source information listed with each entry.
About Unknown
This database is an index to nearly 230,000 individuals who were married between 1743 and 1891 in select
Maine counties. The marriage records indexed in this database have been collected from a variety of sources. A list of which counties are included...
For more information about this database, click here.
This database is an index to nearly 230,000 individuals who were married between 1743 and 1891 in select
Maine counties. The marriage records indexed in this database have been collected from a variety of sources. A list of which counties are included in this database is provided below. Information that may be found in this database for each individual includes their name, their gender, spouse's name, marriage date, marriage place, and source information. Occasionally other pieces of information may be included in the index as well. Marriage records are great sources for genealogists because they document an individual in a particular place and time as well as provide details about that person's marriage.
It is important that you use the information found in this database to locate your ancestor in the original records that this index references. Usually more information is available in the records themselves than is found in an index. For example, marriage records sometimes provide the birth dates and places of the bride and groom, their parents' names, their addresses, and witnesses' names, in addition to the information listed in this index.
Maine became the 23rd state in 1820 as part of the
Missouri Compromise. Until that time,
Maine was part of
Massachusetts and followed Massachusetts's customs for recording of vital records. While recording of vital records was sporadic in the seventeenth century (only 5 towns - Biddeford, Kennebunkport, Kittery,
Wells, and
York - hold records), by the eighteenth century more than 200 towns were maintaining vital records. In 1828, the state legislature mandated that marriages be recorded at the county level. The information found in these local records is often not as detailed as more modern records. After 1864, town clerks were required to forward vital records to the secretary of state and, in 1892, systematic registration of births, deaths, and marriages began on a state-wide basis. These records are available at the
Maine State Archives. It should be noted, however, that until registration began on a statewide level in 1892, there was not total compliance with vital records registration requests from the state.
Information was collected from the following
Maine counties and time periods:
•Androscoggin (1789-1898)
Cumberland (1709-1901)
•Franklin (1784-1879)
•Hancock (1788-1875)
•Kennebec (1742-1893)
•Knox (1835-1888)
•Lincoln (1756-1829)
•Penobscot (1794-1889)
•Piscataquis (1801-1892)
•Sagadahoc (1688-1917)
•Somerset (1822-1863)
·
•Waldo (1774-1892)
•Washington (1772-1891)
•York (1714-1891)
*Although the date range listed in the title of this data set is 1743-1891, there are several dozen marriages in this date set that took place before 1743 and after 1891. We chose to list 1743 and 1891 in the title because those are the first and last years in which a significant number of marriages took place.
