Underused sources: Alumni files

Note to readers: I have had several long posts in my head for a while, with scans already on my computer. Like can happen with so many things, I got it into my head that I needed to wait to write until I could write one of those long posts. Just as a brick wall can crumble when given to someone else who has a fresh perspective, so I am letting go of my preconceived notions about what I ‘should’ be blogging.

Unable to do as much research right now as I usually do, I have been turning to my long “to-do” list of little research tasks that I suspect every long-time researcher has, whether in their head or on paper.  One of the things I have intended to do for a long time is to contact the colleges with which people in my tree have been associated. This past week, I finally began doing that.

Most college archives give you a sense of their holdings on their website, so I started out at the site of a college for which one of my ancestors and his brother were both in an 1890 alumni directory. The site indicated that the archive strives to keep a file on all of its alumni, as well as anyone who has been associated with the school, even if they didn’t graduate. (Please note that in my research this week I have determined that this great depth and breadth does not seem to be typical of American colleges.)  So I emailed them and explained that I am a family historian, and asked if they would be willing and able to provide the alumni files of three people in my tree. One of the archivists responded explaining the fee schedule and I said that would be fine. That same day she emailed me PDFs of two files and said that she had been unable to locate the third person.

The files were larger than I expected.  The smaller of the two, for my ancestor who attended the school in the early 1880’s, contains:

• A newspaper clipping about a book he wrote.
• A newspaper clipping about his death.
• A copy of a Christmas letter one of the deceased alumnus’s children sent out 35 years after his fairly young death, with lots of information about the living family members’ activities and lives.
• A death notice about his widow.
• An index card detailing his family relationships to other alumni (e.g., “first cousin once removed”).
• A copy of his lengthy entry in an alumni biography book that was published well after he died (it includes his death date).
• A very small typed item that is from a class report and talks briefly of all the deceased alumnus’s children.
• A questionnaire filled out in his handwriting regarding his activities since graduation, for publication in an alumni book.
• A carte de visite (photograph) of him as a young man that I had not seen before, though I possess a similar one that was probably taken a few years later.
• A photo that was probably taken shortly before he died, and appears to be from a published book. I had also never seen this photo before.
• A scan of the wrapping of the file.

The archivists were curious as to why they could not locate the third person even though he was listed in the 1890 alumni directory, and did some investigating on their own.  They discovered that he attended a school that was part of their school at the time and that was subsequently spun off into a separate school and moved to a different town, and discovered that two other people with the same surname from the same nearby small town were attending the same school at the same time.  Clearly they knew the family history of this small town because they supposed that the three people were brothers of each other and of my ancestor and referenced how many people with the surname used to live in that little town.  (They are definitely relatives, but can’t all be brothers.)  I am going to contact the other school’s archives to see if they also hold alumni files.

After this initial smashing success, I tried contacting a few other schools, one of them for an alumni file and two because someone else in my tree was a professor who taught at two universities.  So far one of the universities has responded; a staff member found the professor’s entry in old online directories that the school has scanned and hosts, and sent me a link with directions so I can see them myself.  In doing my background research before contacting them, I realized that the history of one of the departments online had been added to the school’s website since the last time I had Googled this ancestor and it mentions my ancestor as one of the earliest professors in this field at the school, including where he taught before coming there, the age he was when he began in the position, and what year he retired.

In doing my background research, I also discovered that Google Books has scanned a heck of a lot of alumni directories, and that some of them have a heck of a lot of information in them.  Through one of these alumni directories, I finally discovered the date and location for a marriage in my tree, and that I had been unable to locate the groom in the 1900 census because he was out of the country at the time!