Celebrating Graduates Past and Present

by Julie Hill

Posted on June 12, 2012

It's the season for seniors across the nation to put on long gowns and funny-looking hats and receive their diplomas, which they've worked so hard for. To all of the graduates and their families, we salute you!

Yearbooks are a great way of reliving memories of our school years. They're also sure to cause younger generations to giggle at the dated clothes or hairstyles. Or who knows, maybe they've come back in style!

Archives has a growing collection of digitized yearbooks available for exploration. Currently, it's possible to search over 3,000 yearbooks, with more coming online very soon. The collection is more than just high school yearbooks. There are also some from middle schools, colleges, and even the military.

If you haven't explored the yearbook collection since it was first launched back in March, you might be surprised at a new feature. Now it's possible to browse by yearbook, not just search by keyword. This lets you easily explore any yearbook from cover to cover.

To browse by yearbook, log in to Archives.com then go to the Search page and select "Yearbooks" in the "Select an Archive" field. Choose the "Yearbook" search option, then choose a city and state, plus school, yearbook, and year if you know it.

yearbook1.pngAfter you click "Search" and choose a search result, you'll start viewing the yearbook at the front cover. Click the "Next Page" button at the top of the image viewer to flip through the pages. Be certain to look at the first few pages and the last few pages of the yearbook, as that's where many were signed by fellow classmates. You never know, your ancestor might have signed the one in our collection!

yearbook-signatures1.jpgEnjoy this graduation season with all of its ceremonies and parties. Also take some time to look through the Archives yearbook collection, either for your ancestors or just browse through old yearbooks from your school. In either case, just don't laugh too hard at the hairstyles!

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