When my grandfather became ill, my mother was two and she was sent to live with cousins out of state. She never got the chance to get to know him and we were anxious to find out as much as we could about him. Before starting any research, all my mother and I had to go on were some vital statistics, some photographs, and some nice stories. Writing to his alma mater yielded something wonderful. Fordham University sent us a copy of a page from his yearbook! It contained a portrait of him that we had never seen. Better still, the brief description below it revealed a side of him that was previously unknown. "Joey," as he was known by his friends, went to Brooklyn Prep before moving on to Fordham, played interclass football and was involved in several other activities. The results of that investigation encouraged us to write for more. In our next try, we wrote to the school and got a transfer of his class records, which were essentially report cards for his four years there. Because of privacy issues, we had to prove that he was a relative and that he was deceased. We were lucky again and to our great joy we received the requested papers. What was especially interesting was that although he got his degree in law, his highest marks were in history. It made us wonder if we had inherited our special interest in history from him.

Because more colleges and universities have tended to stay around for a long time, finding their records is not usually as challenging as finding those of old high schools or grade schools. If you do not know where your people went to school, it's a good idea to look at old maps, old city directories, and local histories. With these tools, you may be able narrow down what schools were in the area at the time. If the school is still open, the best course of action may be to contact the school directly to find out where the records are located and what procedures need to be followed to get them. Often though, the schools may have closed, had the name changed, or the records may have been shipped off to a local repository. In this case, there are several places that will need to be checked.

The records may be with the local school district, in local government offices, local or state libraries or archives, or in the custody of the local genealogical or historical society. Parochial schools' records may be found in church archives, or with a religious order that founded the school.

The Internet has made locating these records easier in some cases. School Web sites, alumni associations, and online catalogs can be great sources of information. In the case of my grandfather, I found some background information on his school through the Brooklyn Prep Alumni Association.

Some collections can be found in the at: National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC). The RLIN AMC (Archival and Mixed Collections) file has "close to 500,000 records available in the Research Libraries Information Network bibliographic database, for archival and manuscript collections in research libraries, museums, state archives, and historical societies located throughout North America."

Universities or colleges often keep records in their own archives, and their catalogs may tell you immediately what is available. Most higher education sites provide thumbnail histories of their respective institutions. For example, visit http://www.news.harvard.edu/guide/intro/index.html for the early history of Harvard University. Notre Dame even has names of students listed in the Bulletin of the University of Notre Dame, 1850-1910 available online.

School memorabilia can be found for sale at auction sites. I searched eBay for my mother's high school and found a postcard from the 1930s for her. I also saw yearbooks from Dana Hall-1906, Asbury College-1936, and San Diego State College-1928. In fact when I searched on the word "yearbook," I got 1,877 hits, and although some were for professional sports, there were many available for schools. Try a search for your ancestor's school—you may get lucky!

Finding Schools on the Net
Below are some Web sites and information to help you find school records.