Genealogy Services
at the Maine Irish Heritage Center
Genealogy research has become the number one pastime in the world! Are you interested in family history? Do you need some guidance with your Irish research? Would you like to review your DNA results with an administrator of our Maine Gaeltacht DNA project?
Genealogy Research at the Maine Irish Heritage Center
The Maine Irish Heritage Center (MIHC) has highly experienced genealogists who will be happy to guide you in your search! This is a great way to work on your family tree while helping to raise funds for the MIHC for programming and further enhancement of our Genealogy and DNA research department.
Get Started in our Library
If you want to get started on your own or need access to specialized databases, bring your laptop to our library on Thursdays from 10 to 2, where you can access four special Ancestry resources with records unavailable to the general public. Space is limited to 8 researchers per session so please reserve using this link to save your seat. These include American Ancestors, Ancestry Library Edition, My Heritage Library Edition, and FamilySearch. We also have a vast database of Maine obituaries that you can search. If you can’t bring a laptop, you can reserve our genealogy workstation which includes all the special databases plus resources like Newspapers.com, Roots.ie, and FindMyPast.
If your ancestors were from the Portland area, we also have numerous yearbooks and city directories going all the way back to the 1800s.
Member Benefits!
- You can reserve the Genealogy Research Station for free during Library Hours or bring your laptop and access exclusive databases like American Ancestors, Ancestry.com Library Edition, and Family Search Library Edition.
- 10% discount on books
Maine Gaeltacht DNA project
MIHC Genealogist, Margaret Feeney LaCombe, founded the Maine Gaeltacht DNA Project in 2011. The project has been successfully connecting cousins in Greater Portland, in Maine, around the country
This test procedure is very simple, just a swab of your cheeks with a cotton swab. Results will post within six to eight weeks.