Saturday, November 7, 2026

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Take a 1914 8th Grade Promotion Test

  Calling all Genea-Musings Fans: 

 It's Saturday Night again - 

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):


1)  Reader Sarah emailed me:  "We pulled real eighth-grade diploma exams from 1902–1914. In the two Ohio county reports we found, only 100 of 282 kids passed. They had to spell Constantinople and Marseilles and answer "Why is tobacco in all its forms more injurious for a boy than for a man?"

"Could make a fun Saturday Night Genealogy Fun prompt: Take the 15-question quiz and guess whether your ancestors passed.

"Here's the page: https://homeschoolstates.com/research/1914-eighth-grade-exam/"

2) Take the test and tell us your score.

3) Which of your ancestors living in 1914 would pass the test?

4) Share your score and your guesses about your ancestors in your own blog post, or in a comment on this blog post, or write a Substack post, Facebook Note, or in some other social media system. Please leave a comment with a link on this post so others can find it.

Thank you to reader Sarah for suggesting this.

Here's mine:

Here is my score on the test:

I got 14 out of 15. I had to take it twice because I misread the rules -- the test should be taken as if you are in 1914. I still missed one of the Geography questions.

Guesses about my ancestors alive in 1914 and at least 12 years old include:

* Frederick Walton Seaver Sr. (1876-1942) -- Pass
* Alma Bessie (Richmond) Seaver (1882-1962) -- Pass
* Frank Walton Seaver (1852-1922) -- Fail
* Hattie (Hildreth) Seaver (1857-1920) -- Fail
* Sophia (Newton) Hildreth (1834-1923) -- Fail
* Thomas Richmond (1848-1917) -- Fail

* Lyle Lawrence Carringer (1891-1976) -- Pass
* Emily (Auble) Carringer (1899-1977) -- Fail
* Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946) -- Fail
* Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944) -- Pass
* Abigail (Vaux) Smith (1844-1931) -- Fail
* Charles Auble (1849-1916) -- Fail
* Georgianna (Kemp) Auble (1868-1952) -- Pass

What was my judgment based on? My criteria were at least an 8th grade education and regular access to a newspaper in 1914.


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