Guidelines for Submitting Search Requests

If you are researching your ancestors, our Local History/Special Collections Department or
Reference Department staff can help you access our holdings. Patrons are welcome to contact
us by email, mail or telephone.

Local History/Special Collections

William Cook at billc@bpl.lib.me.us
Elizabeth Stevens at esteve@bpl.lib.me.us

or the Reference Staff:  reference@bpl.lib.me.us

More contact information

Please include your name, address and telephone number with your request. We will contact you if we have any questions.

Obituary Requests

To facilitate requests, please include:

1. Deceased name
2. Death date (month, day and year)
3. Place of death, last known residence

Two valuable resources for verifying date of death are the Maine State Archives Death Index or the Social Security Death Index (SSDI). The more information you can supply with your request, the better the chances for a successful search. We can look a few days around a date, but are unable to search without atleast a very close idea of the date of death.

Due to the high volume of obituary requests, we ask that you limit your searches to no more than three names in any one request. We try to fill requests as soon as possible, but obituary searches may take up to 5-10 days to complete depending on the amount of information provided with the request and our current workload. 

Fees
We charge no fees, but do ask patrons to reimburse us for cost of copies.  For computer photocopies, the charge is $.10 per page after the first 10 pages. For microfilm copies, the charge is $.25 a copy after first 4.

Our newspaper collection includes:
    Bangor Daily Whig & Courier -July1, 1836 to March3, 1900
    Bangor Daily Commercial -January 1, 1872 to August 4,1956
    Bangor Daily News -January 1, 1900 to present

*Note-in some of the older papers the obituary will be no more than a line with date, place of residence and funeral location, if one is listed at all.
If person died outside the Bangor area, you may need to search in another newspaper from a different town. We can help you identify other possible newspapers and their location.