Search Old Yearbook Photos Online

People go to great lengths to find information. Those who are looking for ancestors for a family tree project, for example, often have to visit libraries, cemeteries, court houses, and churches. Sometimes, that would yield nothing.

Many times, they would have to travel many miles to do this, and that meant most simply could not go. Thankfully, this type of research can be conducted online, though not everything can be found over the Internet. What can be found can save time and money though, and that goes for looking for high school yearbooks as well.

There are services online that can help you find your high school yearbook, but your results will depend on many things.

Obviously, larger schools are going to be easier to find. That doesn’t mean a small school yearbook can not be located, but you won’t know until you try. There are a few different methods of finding this information, and trying all of them is a good idea before giving up on finding them online.

There are a few companies that specialize in printing yearbooks, making class rings, and selling graduation gear. You may want to try these. If they have any in stock, you can buy from them.

They ask you for your school and they will let you know if they have anything. This can be hard if you have no idea who printed your high school yearbook, but it’s worth the search. Some sites devoted to classmates and finding lost friends may have yearbook listings and resources as well.

Some companies collect and sell old yearbooks. The problem with this is that they have a very limited supply, and the results are somewhat erratic. If your yearbook would be considered rare, you might not find it. Most sites like this have a search you can use with your school name.

Instead of putting the proper name of your school in the search, try the name of the town or city first. If something is there, it will pop up that way. They could have labeled your school name wrong, but they would have the location entered correctly.

What might be most useful are the schools that have their yearbooks posted on the Internet. This can be great, but it is also limited in many ways.

There are times when you may not be able to log on to this part of a website without a school email address. Other times, the yearbooks that have been put online might only be recent ones. Small school districts are less likely to have this feature, but that might be slowly changing. Photos are a drain on bandwidth, and some schools can’t justify spending the money to do this.

If you are having absolutely no luck with finding your yearbook online, there are some sites that offer to find it for you. There is a small fee involved, and that fee would then be taken off the price of your book if they can find it for you.

This type of service will search the Internet until a copy can be found, and then send you an email letting you know they have found it for you.

You may even luck out on genealogy sites, though they tend to have information on very old yearbooks rather than ones that are fairly recent.

They often have yearbook exchanges where you can write in that you have one to offer, or that you are looking for one. Though this, and the other methods listed, may net you what you seek, you may not find anything.

When that happens, you may have to call your old high school to see if there is anything they can do to help you out.