Record Atlas
7 eras · 1622–2026 · 148 places

Northern New England — New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine

Portsmouth, Concord, Burlington, Montpelier, Portland, Bangor, Augusta. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1622–1641 Proprietary grants to Mason (New Hampshire) and Gorges (Maine) no registers survive

Land grants of 1622 to John Mason and Ferdinando Gorges covered the coast between the Merrimack and Kennebec rivers; the area was split in 1629, when Mason named his part New Hampshire.
1641–1679 Massachusetts Bay Colony FamilySearch

New Hampshire's settlements agreed in 1641 to be governed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Maine's settlements were folded into it in the 1650s, beginning with York County.
1679–1692 Royal Province of New Hampshire; Maine under Massachusetts FamilySearch

Charles II's charter of 1679 made New Hampshire a province, with government beginning in 1680, and both New Hampshire and Maine were in the Dominion of New England from 1686 to 1689. The Province of Massachusetts Bay, created in 1692, included all of present-day Maine.
1692–1776 Province of New Hampshire; Maine in the Province of Massachusetts Bay; the New Hampshire Grants FamilySearch

New Hampshire's governor was shared with Massachusetts until 1741, when Benning Wentworth took office and the Massachusetts border was settled; Cumberland and Lincoln counties in Maine were created in 1760. In 1764 the Crown ruled in favour of New York over the New Hampshire Grants west of the Connecticut River (now Vermont), where land claims overlapped.
1776–1791 State of New Hampshire; District of Maine (Massachusetts); Vermont an independent republic FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

New Hampshire became a state in January 1776 and ratified the US Constitution on 21 June 1788, and Massachusetts's constitution established the District of Maine on 25 October 1780. Vermont declared independence on 15 January 1777, took the name Vermont on 2 June 1777, and was admitted to the Union on 4 March 1791.
1791–1820 States of New Hampshire and Vermont; Maine part of Massachusetts FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Maine remained part of Massachusetts until it was admitted as the 23rd state on 15 March 1820; the 1790 census listed Maine on its own line, and Vermont was enumerated in 1791. The Maine State Archives directs searches for records before statehood to the Massachusetts Archives.
1820–2026 States of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Vermont town clerks recorded vital events from 1779, and an 1856 act created the state registry with annual lists from 1857. Maine's statewide registration begins in 1892, with earlier records at town level and the State Archives holding about eighty towns' pre-1892 records. New Hampshire's original records stay with the town clerks, and statewide recording is dated 1848, 1866, 1901 or 1905 depending on the source.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1622–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

148 places on this ground

1742 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1682 more.

All record regions · The map