Saturday, April 29, 2023

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Share A Unique Document That Provided New Information

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!


Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along - cue the Mission Impossible music!):

1)  Have you found a unique document or record (e.g., not a vital record, military record, probate record, etc.) that provided new and/or unique information for one or more of your ancestors?  How did it affect your research?  Please share your find.

2)  Write your own blog post, or leave a comment on this post, or write something on Facebook.

Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic.

Here's mine:

My friend, and San Diego genealogy colleague, Yvette Porter Moore, is also a graduate of San Diego High School, and is current Historian of the SDHS Alumni Association.  When she told me that on Facebook, I asked her if there were any school records, besides Yearbooks, for me, my mother, and my grandparents.  There were!!  Yvette copied the report cards for my mother and both grandparents What treasures.  Yvette provided these in 2018.

1)  Here is my mother's report card from 1932-1936:  


*  This covers nine semesters between 1932 and 1936.  She was at Roosevelt Junior High in 1932-3, but it's part of the high school report card.  For 1933 through 1936, she was at San Diego High School.
*  The 7th semester may be a summer school session where she took two classes - typing and shorthand.
*  I never knew that she took two years Latin and of French!
*  It looks like she didn't do well in Geometry.
*  It looks like Gym didn't count toward the GPA, but she did well in it.   Another surprise.
*  She received 30 As, 10 Bs and 4 Cs. On a 4-3-2-1 scale for A-B-C-D, the grade point average is 3.59. 


The source citation for this record is:

San Diego [Calif.] Senior High School, "Cumulative Record Card," Cum File Cabinet C-D, Betty Virginia Carringer card, 1932-1936; San Diego High School Alumni Association History Center, San Diego, California.

2)  Here is my grandfather's report card - he entered SDHS in September 1909 (at age 17) and graduated in June 1914 (at age 22):


He did well in English, Spanish, History, Chemistry, Physiography, Drawing, Expounding (?), and Economics.

3)  Here is my grandmother's report card - entered September 1913 (at age 14), left June 1916 (at age 16, to work after her father died):


She did well in English, Drawing and Botany.

The grades on my grandparents report cards were:

1 = Excellent
2 = Good
3 = Fair
4 = Failure.

These cards didn't do much for my genealogical research, but added significant information about their life story.

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Copyright (c) 2023, Randall J. Seaver

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5 comments:

Linda Stufflebean said...

I've come across several report cards for family members. They make for fun reading and provide a view of our ancestors' school days.

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

I have report cards for my grandfather's sister and my mother. They are interesting to see what subjects they were best at.

Diane Gould Hall said...

That’s a wonderful record to have found Randy. Now I want to contact Yvette and see if she can find my husband’s Dad’s report cards. He also went to SD High. Wonder if Kearny High here in San Diego would have mine?

Linda Stufflebean said...

Here's my find: https://emptybranchesonthefamilytree.com/2023/04/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-241/

Teresa said...

I have my dad's and my aunt's report cards (as well as my own)...they make for fascinating reading!!

Here's the link to my unique document: https://writingmypast.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/sunday-evening-genealogy-fun-unique-document-or-record/