Maine Irish Heritage Center

Contact Information
Library Catalog

Email: [mailto:genealogy@maineirish.com genealogy@maineirish.com]; [mailto:library@maineirish.com library@maineirish.com]

Website: Maine Irish Heritage Center Genealogy Services; MIHC Library

Facebook: Maine Irish Heritage Center - General)

Facebook: Galway Ancestry

Maine Gaeltacht DNA Project

Aran Islands DNA Project

Address (Mail): Maine Irish Heritage Center, PO Box 7588, Portland Maine 04112-7588

Address (Visit): 34 Gray Street, Portland, Maine 04102

Phone: 207.780.0118

Hours: Thursday 10:00 am - 2:00 pm; Friday by appointment for genealogy services 10:00 am - 2:00 pm

Directions (Google Map)

Collection Description
The Maine Irish Heritage Center library houses an extensive collection of Irish literature, history, art, poetry, biographies, historical and current maps, photographs, music, fiction and much more. You will also find Portland City Directories dating back to the 1850s, high school yearbooks for the Portland area as far back as the early 1900s and St. Dominic’s school attendance records from the early 1900s.

The MIHC volunteer library staff are ready to help you with your independent research. We maintain several subscription services that can be accessed for a small fee including Newspapers.com, Ancestry.com Library Edition, as well as the complete collection of databases from American Ancestors and the New England Genealogical Historical Society. The newest addition to our collection is free in-house access to the Family Search.org collection as an Affiliate Library, offering over 300,000 additional records that are only available at an Affiliate Library site.

We also have a dedicated team of volunteer genealogists to help you research your roots for a fee. These genealogists are especially knowledgeable in the regions of Ireland that saw large populations emigrate to Maine.

Family trees are on file for many of the early Irish settlers in Maine including names like French, Joyce, McDonough, Walsh, Coyne and Flaherty.

The Maine Irish Heritage Center has a database of obituaries, death notices, marriages and events of interest. This database of over 12,000 has documents from Portland, Bangor, Lewiston, York County, and Norwood, MA areas as well as other parts of Maine, MA and around the world. The earliest obituaries date from the 1850s.

Reference Services
We are most proud of our committed and dedicated team of volunteer library staff and genealogists who have worked together to provide these services. The library staff is available Thursdays and hopes to expand to more days of the week in the future as volunteer staffing allows. The genealogists are available Fridays and have more than 100 years of genealogy research experience as well as extensive expertise in interpreting DNA results. They will happily point you to what is available and help you decide the best approach for your unique situation.

Tours
The Maine Irish Heritage Center is located in the West End of Portland in the former St. Dominic's church, built brick-by-brick by Irish Immigrants throughout the 1800s.Volunteers for the Maine Irish Heritage Center are happy to give tours of our magnificent home on Thursdays between 10-2. Group tours are available by appointment and can be scheduled in advance by calling 207-780-0118.

The Research Center
If you can't visit us in person, feel free to contact us for information related to your research. Our library catalog is on-line to help you find resources to request before your visit. We can copy information and send it to you or do research on your behalf for a fee.

Tips for Your Visit

 * Let us know your goals and what specific information you would like to find during your visit to our library
 * Are you interested in genealogy or another research project? Letting us know your specific interests will help us ensure your visit is worthwhile
 * DNA testing can be extremely helpful. We maintain two DNA projects which you can join if you have roots in Galway, and especially Connemara.
 * Before you visit us, do your "homework" and send us basic information about your family tree - names, dates and places going back as far as you know. A family tree is an ideal way to provide this.
 * Complete the Genealogical Backgrounder on our website
 * Let us know your goals and what specific information you would like to find during your visit (target person, timeframe, etc)