Saskatchewan Ancestors: The Greystone Yearbooks Online at the University of Saskatchewan Archives

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.

52 Ancestors: Week 36 - Finding School Records

School records can be a fun way to see your ancestors in their formative years. Besides pictures, you can also gain insight into their interests and hobbies through yearbooks. If you're lucky enough to find admissions records, you can find details of family. This post I'll be looking at sources for school records.


Ancestry
Ancestry has a collection of Canadian Yearbooks digitized in the collection Canada, Selected School Yearbooks, 1901-2010. This collection can be searched by name. or, alternatively, you can browse. The yearbooks are grouped by province, then by city, then by school. From what I could see, the vast majority of the schools only had one year digitized. And don't forget to look at the advertisements. As a rule, yearbooks tend to have community businesses buy ads. Here's an ad page from the 1928 Manitoba Provincial Normal School, in Winnipeg:

Find My Past
Though known mostly for UK records, Find My Past is growing its North American records. Among their Canadian school records are the following record set titles:

• Ontario, Canada- Midland High School Review, Year Book, 1932

• Ontario, Canada- Queens University Summer School Prospectus, 1943

• Ontario, Canada- Roll Of Pupils Of Upper Canada College, Toronto, 1830-1916

• Ontario, Canada- The Caradoc Academy

• Ontario, Canada- The London Grammar School and The Collegiate Institute

• Ontario, Canada- The Magnet (Vol. 8, No. 1), Jarvis Collegiate Instiute Yearbook, 1926

• Ontario, Canada- The War Book Of Upper Canada College, Toronto, 1914-1919

• Ontario, Canada- The Western University

• Ontario, Canada- Torontonensis - The Year Book Of The University Of Toronto (Vol. 17), 1915

• Ontario, Canada- Torontonensis - The Year Book Of The University Of Toronto (Vol. 38), 1936

• Ontario, Canada- University Of Toronto Roll Of Service, 1914-1918

• Ontario, Canada- University Of Toronto, Commencement Program, 1947

• Ontario, London Public Schools, 1848-1871

• Quebec, Canada- Mcgill University At War, 1914-1918 and 1939-1945

• Quebec, Canada- Mcgill University, Directory Of Graduates. 1946

Public Libraries
The local public library in your ancestor's area are a good place to look for yearbooks. Most of these library systems collect local history. School yearbooks and newspapers are a natural extension of these collections, especially if they are also the local area's archive. As an example, I checked the New Brunswick Public Library System's website. I found copies of yearbooks from several different schools, including ones from St. Vincent's Girls' High School (Saint John, NB).


Schools
If the school your ancestor attended still exists, why not try contacting them? The school libraries will most certainly have copies of their yearbooks and student newspapers. This doesn't just hold true for post secondary education. Middle schools, junior high schools and high schools will too.


Provincial and Municipal Archives
Most provincial and municipal archives will have school records. And not just yearbooks. You can find teacher certifications, attendance registers, and school board minutes, to name a few. I took a quick look at the online catalogues of some archives and found:

• The Archives of Manitoba has a collection of records for the Manitoba School for the Deaf. Among the collection are attendance registers and enrollment applications.
• Newfoundland's The Rooms has a fond called St. Mary's School fonds. It is a collection of log books of the day to day activities of the school in the early and mid 20th century.
• The Halifax Municipal Archives has the Tower Road School Student Records. These are the student files, so there's report cards and family information. Because of the personal information involved, access may be restricted.
• The City of Toronto Archives has a file called Normal School - extrance examination results. The file contains the list of children who passed their entrance exams in 1909.
• The Royal BC Museum has among it's collection Series GR-0470 - Correspondence School administrative records. This collection among other things, has documents relating to teaching children who were in the Japanese Internment Camps during World War II

What gems have you found looking for education records? Let us know in the comments below.

Railway Schoolhouses

In a recent Facebook post by the Archives of Ontario, they had posted pictures of railway schoolhouses. I had never heard about these, so I decided to find out more.

In remote communities the only way some children got their schooling was by a school house that traveled the rails. In Ontario, they were used from the late 1920's to the late 1960's. In Newfoundland, railway schools were in existence during the mid 1930's to the early 1940's.

The school car would pull into town for a week or so, and all school age children would be taught all the normal subjects you would see in a traditional school. At the end of the time period, the kids would be given homework to be completed by the time the train came back. In the evenings, adults could receive schooling themselves, or take advantage of the music and books there. They would even host movie and bingo nights! The teacher and their family also helped those with literacy problems fill out forms, as well as those new immigrants who had little or no English.

The school cars were operated jointly by the government and the rail companies, There were desks, blackboards, and pull down maps. It didn't look much different than a regular schoolroom in a bricks and mortar school.The school car also had an apartment set up for the teacher and their family. Fred Sloman was a rail car teacher for over 30 years, and raised his family travelling the rails from settlement to settlement.

Aboriginal, Finnish, Norwegian, French and British children inside a school train at Nemigos, near Chapleau, Ontario, around 1950
Source: Library and Archives Canada/National Film Board of Canada/Photothèque collection/PA-111570
© Public Domain. Credit: H. Wright Corp.
nlc-4723

You can find out more about railway schools here:

histoiredurailhistory.ca

saltscapes

The Whig

Collections Canada

National Film Board

Galt Railway Historic Park