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ABSTRACT: Yearbooks, sometimes called
directories, are mostly from schools, universities,
and military units, but also companies and churches
produce them. Websites are collecting and posting
yearbooks online. These include free websites such
as FamilySearch Digital Library, Internet Archive,
and school websites, and many others. This class
will discuss and show examples of yearbooks, the
kinds of things they contain, and how to find them
online. Besides identifying the person, they usually
contain photos and information about his or her
activities. If you have old yearbooks yourself,
there are websites that will scan and post them
online for free. The notes for this class and
related articles, all with active Internet links,
are posted on my website https://uvtagg.org/classes/dons/dons-classes.html
,
WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
Instructor is Donald R. Snow ( snowd@math.byu.edu
) of Provo and St. George, Utah.
Tips: (1) To put an icon on your
desktop for these notes, or any webpage, just
drag the icon from in front of the address in
your browser onto your desktop. (2)
To open a link, but keep your place in these
notes, hold down the Control key while clicking
the link.
This class will discuss yearbooks
(directories) and how to find and use them in
family history.
ABOUT YEARBOOKS
Yearbooks are made to remember a particular
school, class, event, or occasion, especially
high schoosls, colleges, and military units.
Many churches produce yearbooks or directories
for their members and these sometimes contain
photos. For example, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints produces current
yearbooks (directories) online that can members
can download from the Church website; older
printed church directories are sometimes
available in local libraries.
Military units, such as Army companies and
Navy ships, sometimes produce yearbooks and many
are online
Most online yearbooks are OCR'd (Optical
Character Recognition), so you can search for
any name or word, but if it has an index, check
that too, since sometimes the OCR doesn't read
everything correctly
If you, or someone you are interested in,
taught at a school or university, check those
yearbooks too, since they usually contain more
than just students.
North Hollywood High School (where I
graduated) -- the yearbook was El Camino; a
Google search for "north hollywood high school
yearbook" found -- http://northhollywoodhighschoolalumni.com/yearbooks.html
-- free website, as are most high school
websites
Stanford Ward 1964 Photo Directory or Yearbook
-- was lots of work to produce, but valuable to
all of us now
Morningside 7th Ward (St. George, Utah) color
photo directories -- produced by Leroi Nelson
every year, a valuable tool and historical
record
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
stakes in Edgemont area of Provo, Utah, produced
stake directories (yearbooks) -- I scanned all I
had and donated the hard copies to the BYU
Library
SOME MAJOR WEBSITES FOR YEARBOOKS
FamilySearch Digital Library -- https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/
-- has more than 400,000 digital books,
including more than 28,000 yearbooks; search for
"yearbook" (without the quotes and singular
since the title would contain "yearbook", not
"yearbooks"; these are from schools and
universities all over the world, not just Utah,
since they have partner libraries in other
locations
FamilySearch Catalog -- https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog
-- Most books in FS Digital Library are also
listed in the FS Catalog, but not all yet; there
are also a few yearbooks in the Catalog that are
not in the FS Digital Library yet
Mountain West Digital Library -- https://mwdl.org/
-- search for terms like "yearbooks" or "school
yearbooks" or "salt lake city yearbooks"
(without the quotes)
U.S.
Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979 on
MyHeritage has over 289 million names
-- https://www.myheritage.com/research/catalog?s=195946641
-- you need a MyHeritage membership, free to
LDS members since it is a FamilySearch
Partner website
SOME YEARBOOK WEBSITES FOR UTAH
BYU Banyan yearbooks -- best
copies are on FamilySearch Digital Library and
on Internet Archive -- a
href="https://archive.org/">https://archive.org/
; Example of 1956 Banyan -- https://archive.org/details/banyan1956brig
-- these are every-word searchable and entire book
can be downloaded in several formats, including as
searchable pdf
University of Utah Utonian yearbooks -- best
copies are on FamilySearch Digital Library; opies
are also on U of U Marriott Library, but not
downloadable nor as good quality