How can I find details about an ancestor

Question

I am looking for my grandfather's school records... I have the following information on him:

1. His first, middle, and both his parents last names.

2. His parents' first and last names.

3. His approximate date of birth (date, but not exact year... early 1930s)

4. The number of his last driver's license and date of issue.

5. City where he is buried

6. He served in the Korean War.

I'm not looking to see if he was in the honor role or anything of the sort... I just want to know years and school names....

I've tried ancestry websites like ancestry.com and such, but they are of little to no help at all.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I can look or who I can call? This is very important to me.

Thank you all in advance... any help is truly appreciated.

Answer 1

go to his hometown, maybe visit local schools and see if their is any records on him, they might keep yearbooks or he might be on a trophy? Libraries or a town hall uasually hold records of fairs and things or even a newspaper if it is a small town.

Answer 2

Just a couple of thoughts:

1)  If you think you might know the school(s) and locations, set up an automatic search on eBay to watch for keywords like: "yearbook 'Willmar High School'".  A lot of them are bought at estate sales, etc., and the seller is normally quite willing to do a lookup for you to confirm or deny whether your ancestor is actually in the yearbook.

2)  Ancestry does have many school yearbooks available online.  I just went to the Card Catalog and did a keyword search of "school" and found they have 2.9 million U.S. school yearbook pictures, plus other sources...  Yes, it's hit or miss, but if you have an idea where your grandfather went to school you can look it up with keywords in the card catalog to see if there's any chance of finding him there.

Finally, as always, if you'd like to post the information you have, many of us would be happy to try to help you look for the records you're wanting to find.

I hope that helps!

Answer 3

step one- DOCUMENT his date of birth (from death certificate or birth certificate, funeral records, other family sources)

step two-  determine where his parents resided in the 1930 census. Compare this to his service records (possibly on ancestry, at least enlistment, so forth).  This is not a guarantee of where he grew up. It is a place to start (and cross your fingers)

step three- from obituary or other sources, learn as much as possible about any siblings. IE  if their info (children, or selves if still living) shows that they graduated from a certain high school/ year, that places the family in that locality. Networking with cousins that you have not seen in many years will often lead to the gold mine of old family pics.

Once you have better info on where they were between (say) 1939-1950 (perhaps by comparing to "side" records of family), then zoom in on that county. Contact either the usgenweb site for the county.. or the library there. Now you have a source for what schools existed, and if he may have attended there.  Tip.. I have seen a number of genweb sites where folks have contributed old school group pictures.  

Answer 4

On http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Answer 5

look into your brain

Answer 6

Each state has a State Library that keeps the school records, mostly on microfilm.  It's alphabetical, thank goodness.

You can either pay a visit or call them about an inter-library loan where they will send the microfilm to your nearest library on loan.

OR find your nearest LDS Church that has a family center. They also have microfilm, but usually have to order it from Utah, where you pay (used to be) 2.50 per week.  If you rent it for 3 weeks in a row, they get to keep it.

Answer 7

google

Answer 8

Have no idea

Answer 9

www.ancestry.com