Find the people you come from
The Harland H. Eastman Genealogy Room holds the largest collection of vital records in Southern Maine. Researchers travel a long way for what’s on our second floor.
The collection
We specialize in Northern New England materials, catalogued with a GEN prefix in the catalog. Among the holdings:
- Maine vital records on microfilm, both pre-1892 and 1892–1955
- Sanford and Springvale voter registrations dating to 1935
- Town histories and York County census records
- Cemetery records and historic local newspapers from 1899–1989
- IGI records for the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, and France
- Franco-American and Acadian records
- Historic photographs of the local area
The library is also a FamilySearch Research Center, which lets visiting researchers into online files that are otherwise restricted, and offers Ancestry Library Edition on site.
Research from home
Digitized Sanford newspapers, the Sanford News and the Sanford Tribune and Advocate.
Sanford Distaff yearbooks going back as far as 1918.
Using the Genealogy Room
The Eastman Room is on the library’s second floor. All visitors sign in at the front desk to use it.
You’re welcome to bring notebooks, laptops, binders, and writing utensils into the room; bags and briefcases stay downstairs or in your vehicle. A microfilm reader is available on site.
Genealogy materials do not circulate and are not available through interlibrary loan, which is exactly why they’re always here when you need them.
Tuesdays and Wednesdays we’re open until 7:00 pm, handy for after-work research. All hours and directions
Can’t make the trip?
Our volunteers will conduct a limited search of Maine families for a fee of $20.00 per hour. Email spl@springvalelibrary.org or call 207-324-4624 with what you know so far, and follow up by phone if you don’t hear back from your first note.
Checks are payable to Springvale Public Library, mailed to 443 Main Street, Springvale, Maine 04083.