A chronology of school attendance can be good for you to develop for yourself or as something to ask someone you are interviewing. People who moved around a lot as children may remember names of schools they attended better than specific addresses.
I’ve posted mine as an example. My residence never changed, but the school district moved us around a little bit:
- kindergarten-second grade–Ferris Elementary School, Ferris, Illinois [where my parents both went to grade school for time]
Photograph of postcard showing former Carthage High School. Subsequently it was the junior high school.
- third grade–Lincoln Elementary School, Carthage, Illinois [where my mother taught elementary school for over thirty years]
- fourth-fifth grade–Union-Douglas School, east of Basco, Illinois
- sixth grade–Ferris Elementary School
- seventh-eighth grade–Scofield Junior High, Carthage, Illinois [it was the high school when my maternal grandmother attended it]
- ninth-twelfth grade–Carthage High School, Carthage, Illinois [where my parents went to high school]
- freshmen year college–Culver-Stockton College, Canton, Missouri
- remainder of college (BS and MS)–Western Illinois University, Macomb, Illinois [where my mother and several great-aunts and great-uncles attended]
It’s ok to have blanks, especially as you work back in time with earlier family members.
5 Responses
I’ve done this with my dad, who was blind during his last 10 years or so. I interviewed him on tape, letting him talk about what interested him, for the most part. During one session, he basically gave me a chronology including every house or apartment the family occupied, and which school he attended during each residency. Later I found, online, a history of early Tacoma schools, with pictures of each building; and I drove around the city, taking pictures of the places he had lived – those still standing. I even have some of his report cards.
Where do you put this chronology in your tree?
I put things like this in the notes section of the individual in my software program. I use it in the memories feature on family search’s family tree and I put it in the individual’s gallery in my tree as a story on Ancestry.com
I’m doing this with as many people in my tree as possible including myself, hubby and children. When I was a kid, we only moved once but I went to three pubic grades grades schools and a junior high and then on to private high school. The three grade schools and junior high were in the same district but being on the very tail end of the baby boom, the district was growing by leaps and bounds and new schools were being built to accommodate all of us. One of the grade schools was brand spanking new for first grade and now when I look at that building, almost 50 years later, it just looks tired and worn out. And, far smaller than I remember it!
Interesting…I haven’t thought of this! We lived at the same address until after I was out of college but the school experience for my sister and I was different. I went to one school K-6 and the high school for 7-12. We had no Jr High back then. My sister is 3 yrs younger. She went to one school for kindergarten (the school my dad attended K-6), and grades 1-6 in my elementary. Then she went to the new middle school for grades 7-8 and then high school in the same building I was in. 4 schools as opposed to my two. I know my dad attended 3 schools. I’ll have to ask mom about her years!