Yearbooks are a fun way to find out about your ancestor's academic life. If your ancestor attended or worked at the University of Saskatchewan between 1912 and 1969, then you're in luck. The University has digitized their yearbooks for these years on their website.
The collection is called Student Yearbooks Online, 1912-1969. Digitized from microfilms, the images follow the yearbooks through its various name changes and formats
- From 1913 to 1920, the April edition of the University's newsletter The Sheaf was the graduation edition and served as a yearbook.
- 1921 a stand alone yearbook was published, called The Spectrum.
- 1922/1923 - published as The Keystone
- 1924-1926 - published as US
- 1927 - 1969 - published as The Greystone
I looked through the years and the yearbooks are really not much different than the yearbooks I remember from my own school years. Faculty pictures, student pictures and bios, and extracurricular activities are all featured. As to be expected, the early years have quite formal pictures.
Here's a couple of student bios from the very first graduating class of 1912
Here's a neat one from the 1920 yearbook. I always get excited to see an ancestor's signature.
Another unexpected find. A tribute to a student who died in WWI from the 1917 yearbook.
Don't forget the faculty. Here's the deans from 1937.
Extra curricular activities are a huge part of any academic life. Here's the badminton and cross country teams from 1956.
As the years progress, the pictures start becoming more candid. Here's some of the pictures taken at a dance after an awards banquet in 1964
Lastly, don't forget the advertisements. Here's some from the 1943 yearbook
The images in the collection are fairly clear. The website does warn that there may be missing pages and low quality images, due to the conditions at time of the original microfilming. Also, take note of these other caveats:
- Due to privacy restrictions, later years won't have individual student photos and bios of the graduating class. Once a year book has passed the 92 year benchmark, they will also become available online. I looked and as of today, student bios and pictures are available up to 1927. However, there are still group photos from extra curriculars. You might still find your ancestor among those.
- There is no zoom function. This can make the site a little clunky to use, but it's not terrible.
- There is no ability to print. However, just right click on the image and save the page as a picture. Then you can use your computer's capabilities to crop and manipulate how you like.
