Sometimes a wonderful book is out of print before you realize it had been published. So it’s great to hear that another printing will take place sometime in the coming year.

Such is the case with “A Transcription of Trenton’s Cemeteries So They Are Not Forgotten,” by Patricia Leland and Robert Leland.

To my knowledge, I don’t have a single ancestor buried in the Hancock County town of Trenton, but I found this 130-page volume fascinating.

Yes, there is frequently extra information augmenting the inscription that has been copied for the gravestones.

Let’s look at Capt. Amariah McFarland, who died Sept. 26, 1876, and is buried in Goose Cove Cemetery.

He was born in 1889, his entry tells us, the son of John and Hannah Leland McFarland, and his spouse was Mary Jane Anderson.

We also find here: Died on the 25th, on board the barque Mary C. Hale, on her passage home to New York and buried at sea, Capt. AMARIAH MCFARLAND of Trenton, age about 51 years – Taken from the October 12, 1876 issue of the Ellsworth American.

Included is a photograph of his stone, inscribed

AMARIAH L McFARLAND

Died and buried at sea

Sept. 26, 1876

AE 56 yrs 11 mos

In the same row are buried the McFarlands’ son and daughter-in-law, Amariah and Carrie Ober McFarland, and the page offers a photo of this couple.

How neat is that?

Now, not every stone is photographed, and not every person buried in Trenton is pictured, but there are many photos sprinkled throughout the volume. Family members contributed several photos.

Pictures of gravestones include some very interesting ones, such as the Capt. Edward Remick stone in Leland Cemetery, with a carved hand pointing upward and the inscription “GONE HOME.”

Each gravestone transcribed is numbered. There are maps for some cemeteries, or at least directions for finding the stones according to how they were numbered for the particular cemetery.

And there is an index in the back of the book.

Other features are 1790 and 1800 censuses for Trenton, though only the heads of household are listed by name.

There also are GPS locations for each cemetery, and a list of Trenton veterans up through World War II. Very nice.

You can consult “A Transcription of Trenton’s Cemeteries” at Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, at Southwest Harbor Public Library and at Ellsworth Public Library. The copy I perused will be given to Bangor Public Library.

When the book is reprinted, I’ll list ordering information here in Family Ties.

Speaking of Ellsworth Public Library, a copy of the genealogical research of the late Joseph Lear of Lamoine was formally presented to the library during the Nov. 15 meeting of the Hancock County Genealogical Society.

Lear’s research covers nearly all of the founding families of Trenton, Lamoine, Eden (Bar Harbor) and surrounding areas, as well as many local historical events, various newspaper accounts and inventories of most local cemeteries.

After Lear’s passing in 2004, his work became available to both the Lamoine Historical Society and to the Hancock County Genealogical Society.

Since that time, the Lamoine Historical Society has archived and indexed its collection, and members Ron Fortier and Charlene Clemons of the Hancock County Genealogical Society have worked to arrange and reformat many of the records to make them more usable for library patrons.

The collection is being incorporated into Ellsworth Public Library’s Alvin S. Whitmore Collection, which includes genealogical and local history items, and has been named one of the top collections in Maine.

For more information on the collection, contact Charlene Clemons at the library at 667-6363.

The library has a Web site, including a catalog, at www.ellsworth.lib.me.us.

The library is in a beautiful building, right handy to downtown. In addition to the Whitmore Collection, check out the Maine Non-Fiction section, which includes books such as William R. Sawtell’s “Slate, Rails and Men: The History of Brownville,” “Medford Revisited,” “Brownville Slate Quarries” and “Old Sebec Volume 1.”

Send genealogy queries to Family Ties, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402; or e-mail queries to familyti@bangordailynews.net.