Maine Townships: Difference between revisions

'''Fewer records. ''' No town meetings are held, and no town meeting minutes are kept in townships. It would be unusual for a township to have its own record-keeping official. The county registrar of deeds should have the township's land records. Nearby towns in the county also '''''may ''''' keep a few historical facts about people who have lived in neighboring townships.  

'''Changes in status. ''' Townships can decide to organize into a [[Maine Town Records|town]] government, or a [[Maine Plantations|plantation]]. Also, from time to time, towns may choose to become townships. If a former town has a declining population, and its citizens decide to discontinue as a town, they stop holding town meetings and the former town's records are usually transferred to a nearby functioning town.  

'''Names and numbers. ''' Some townships have names ''such as'' • [[Hancock County, Maine Genealogy|Fletchers Landing]], • [[Somerset County, Maine Genealogy|Big W]], or • [[Unity Plantation, Maine|Unity Township]]. Other townships are known more by their numbers ''such as'' • [[Piscataquis County, Maine Genealogy|Island No. 63]], • [[Somerset County, Maine Genealogy|Township 4 R17 West of the Easterly Line of the State]], • [[Washington County, Maine Genealogy|Township 37 Middle Division]], or • [[Berlin, Maine|Township 6 North of Weld]]. Many of Maine's unorganized territories are known by '''''both ''''' a name ''and '' a number, ''for example'' [[Lang Plantation, Maine|Township 2 R3 WBKP (Lang Township)]].  

'''Township groups. ''' Some counties of Maine list their townships within larger geographic locations ''such as '' [[Washington County, Maine Genealogy|East Central Washington]], [[Oxford County, Maine Genealogy|North Oxford]], or [[Somerset County, Maine Genealogy|Seboomook Lake]]. Moreover, in some counties, a few of the townships are split into two of the groupings (as shown on such counties' FamilySearch Wiki maps by a bright-green line).  

'''Other unorganized territories. ''' In addition to being labelled a township, sometimes an unorganized territory of Maine may instead be called a gore, grant, island, patent, purchase, strip, surplus, territory, or tract. Such units are similar to a township in their low population, lack of local-government, and lack of organized record-keeping.  

'''Plantations. ''' Nevertheless, in Maine [[Maine Plantations|plantations]] are between towns and townships in their level of government organization. For examples of Maine plantations and their records, see [[Coplin Plantation, Maine|Coplin Plantation]], [[Matinicus, Maine|Matinicus]], or [[Monhegan, Maine|Monhegan]]. Look for Maine plantation records the same way you look for [[Maine Town Records|Maine town records]].  

'''Statistics. ''' Maine has about 425 townships (unincorporated territories), 34 plantations<ref>"List of plantations in Maine" in ''Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia'' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_plantations_in_Maine (accessed 27 February 2013).</ref>, 454 towns or cities, and three Indian reservations. The unorganized township territories include slightly over half the land area of Maine.<ref name="Muni" />