A passion for preserving family history

Those who oversee one of our most valuable assets – information about where we come from – are dedicated people with a passion for helping people find their roots.

They are members of the Taconnet Falls Chapter of the Maine Genealogy Society, located in Winslow, but they guard and protect records from central Maine and beyond.

On Wednesday I witnessed their dedication as they helped move 348 boxes of books, magazines, diaries, vital documents, obituaries and other documents from the former Winslow Public Library at 10 Lithgow St. to a temporary home in a classroom at the former St. John Catholic School on South Garand Street, about a mile away.

“We have the only library of the nine chapters of the Genealogy Society of Maine,” said member Dawn Delaney, 74. “There is only one that has a library and that is us, and many of our documents are one of a kind . . Even the state doesn’t have them. There are family trees, town histories, telephone directories, many censuses. Many of the old, old families have leather-bound books. Retailer details. Just great.”

Delaney, of Saco, and members Barbara Warren of Benton and Joseph Owen of Augusta were carrying items from the four-room library as volunteers from the Mormon churches in Waterville and Skowhegan and workers from PRO Moving Service of Waterville carried out loads of boxes and pushed. to a large PRO truck backing into the building.

Across the street from the city building, the Kennebec River is visible, which flooded the street and basement of the library last December, all the way to the first floor where documents were stored. Fortunately, the majority of the books and documents escaped the water, but were exposed to higher humidity.

After twenty years on Lithgow Street and many years before that on the second floor of The Center in downtown Waterville (which was replaced by the Paul J. Schupf Art Center), members of the genealogical society decided it was necessary to find a new home to search. The Catholic Church offered them a temporary six-month stay in a vacant classroom in the former St. John School and the association is donating money to help offset heating costs.

Packing up and leaving was a challenge as members of the board are in their 80s and other members are in their 70s, while the youngest are in their 60s. Warren, Delaney and member Bruce Hanson of Skowhegan spent several days packing the 348 boxes for the move. Caswell’s Liquidation Center in Waterville donated boxes, Marden’s Surplus & Salvage donated packing tape and tape dispensers and PRO Moving of Waterville moved the load for free, Warren said.

Warren, 75, said the association is grateful for the help. She called PRO Moving to ask if they had any cardboard boxes they could use and co-owner Jason Brann offered to move the library contents for free, she said.

Brann, who was at the library Wednesday, didn’t want to take all the credit, saying that Peter Carey, co-owner of PRO Moving, believes strongly in helping organizations that do good work in the community.

Members of the Society Chapter, a nonprofit organization founded in 1981, volunteer to assist research people who call or visit the library from around the country and world seeking information. The library is open from April to November and is funded by annual membership fees of $10 from its approximately forty members, as well as donations, lawn sales and other fundraisers they launch.

But they do it because they believe in the cause and recognize the importance of securing past records.

“It’s about the history of the community and the state and the cultural heritage of the residents, and the family ties,” said Warren, whose late mother, Harriet, also of Benton, was a chapter member and professional genealogist researcher. Barbara Warren grew up influenced by her mother’s work and is now a member of not only the genealogy society, but also the Kennebec Historical Society. She is chair of the Benton Historical Committee and serves on the boards of both the Fairfield and Vassalboro historical societies.

“To me, all these communities are connected,” she said. “People moved through the communities and got married, especially in the beginning. You never know what you will find in the archives. That’s how I think about history – it’s a jigsaw puzzle – the interconnectedness between the founding families.”

The association is working to establish a permanent home for its library, which has been housed at the Lithgow site free of charge thanks to the city. According to them, such support is crucial.

“We could really use a benefactor because it is so important to this specific region,” Delaney said. “There are rich people living in this area. “You just have to ask them the right way. You just have to ask.”

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter for 35 years. Her columns appear here on Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an old barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She can be reached at [email protected]. For previous Reporting Aside columns, visit centralmaine.com

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