GenealogyBlog

Do you know what sports if any your father or grandfather played in high school, college or beyond. Perhaps your mother or grandmother was the star of the basketball team or the ping pong champion of the school. With a little digging you can find out about the youthful activities that occupied your ancestors time.

The first and easiest way to find out is to ask. If your ancestor is still around ask him or her. If they are not, ask an older aunt or uncle or anyone who knew your ancestor. You might be surprised about what they know. Here are a few questions about what to ask them.

• What sports did you play when you were in high school or earlier?




• What position did you play?




• Tell me about one particular game or match that you remember playing in.




• What special awards did you earn while playing in the sport?




• Tell me about one of your teammates that you remember.




• Did you continue playing the sport in college or afterwords

You can use these or come up with some questions on your own. Try to ask them open ended questions rather than a questions which can be answered with a yes or no.

If there are no older relatives to ask, there are still resources you can look for to understand your ancestors life in school and sports. Here are some of my favorite resources to look for;

• High School Yearbook: Many of these can be found at the local historical society or library.




• College Yearbook: You can find these at the college library.




• Local Newspaper Articles: A lot of newspapers are being digitized and indexed. If your lucky your ancestor’s hometown newspaper is one of them.




• High School or College Programs: Many teams published a yearly pamphlet about their teams


Below is a small sample of what you might find.


• High School or College Newspaper: School newspapers highlighted the sports programs.


Here is another example of what you might find.

If you know of any additional resources to find out about the sports your ancestors played, please reply to this post. We would love to hear about them.

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Newspaper Archive Search at Genealogy Bank

Newspaper Archive Search and NewspaperArchive.com