When the State began to maintain vital statistics in 1892, they also collected information on divorces in the State. The clerks of each court were required to submit lists of divorces each year. The volumes in this collection are the compilations of these records from 1892 to 1963. Each volume generally covers a two year period (with a couple of exceptions), and each year is then arranged by county alphabetically. Within the counties are the lists of all divorces, sometimes including maiden name of the wife, date of marriage, date of divorce, and cause of divorce. However, not all clerks filled in all the information, so many pages will just include the names of the two parties.

This information can then be used to locate the file in the court records or order an abstract from the Office of Data, Research, and Vital Statistics. Divorces taking place in 1930 or later need to be requested directly from the court. A list of Superior Courts and their contact information can be found here. Divorces prior to 1930 can be found in many cases online at FamilySearch by searching for the county in the Card Catalog and then selecting court records in the search results.

These volumes have not been indexed, but for an index of divorces in Maine prior to 1892, which includes the divorces in these records up to 1903, see MaineGenealogy.net. For more information about these divorce returns please contact the Maine State Archives Research Room at maine.archives@maine.gov or 207-287-5790.