How to cite a high school yearbook in your family tree

A yearbook entry is good evidence for a few things: that a person was at a particular school in a particular year, the name and nickname they used then, what they were involved in, and often the address the family lived at. A family tree that says only "from a yearbook" is hard for the next researcher to check. This guide gives you a citation you can paste into a tree, built from the details every page on this site shows, and explains what to add for the yearbook itself.

What a complete yearbook citation contains

Genealogists ask a source citation to answer three questions: what is the source, where in it is the fact, and where did you see it. For a yearbook that means:

The school and the year of the book. Our person pages print both, for example "Cambridge High and Latin School yearbook, 1928". Use the title on the cover or title page too if it has one (many were called "The Log", "The Radiator" or similar). Our pages do not always print that title, so take it from the scan.
The page. The "page" on our pages is the position of the page in the scan. The number printed on the page itself can differ, because covers, endpapers and unnumbered pictures come first. Cite the scan position and say so, for example "image 42".
The entry. Name the person as the book prints the name, since spelling often differs from later records.
The copy you used. Every page here links to the Internet Archive item (its identifier looks like cambridgehighlat1928unse). Cite the Internet Archive as the place you saw the digital copy, with its address and the date you looked.
The finding aid, if you want to be generous. If you found the person through this site, you can add The Class Album's page as how you found it. The scan, not our page, is the source of the fact.

Worked example

We will use the page for A. Bernice Chute, who appears in the 1928 yearbook of Cambridge High and Latin School (her page). The page shows her full name, her nickname "Bernie", the address 14 Orchard Street, the school, the class year, and the grammar school she came from. The facts you need for the citation are: school, year, scan image 42, and Internet Archive item cambridgehighlat1928unse.

Evidence Explained style

Elizabeth Shown Mills's Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace (Genealogical Publishing Company, third edition) is the standard American reference for genealogical citations. It gives models for published books and for digital images of them. We cannot reprint its models, so what follows is only an illustration in the same pattern, with a reference note and a source-list entry. Check the book (or evidenceexplained.com) for its exact punctuation.

Reference note:
1. Cambridge High and Latin School (Cambridge, Mass.), yearbook for 1928, image 42, entry for A. Bernice Chute; digital image, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/cambridgehighlat1928unse/page/n42 : accessed 20 October 2026).

Source-list entry:
Cambridge High and Latin School. Yearbook for 1928. Cambridge, Mass.: the school, 1928. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/cambridgehighlat1928unse : accessed 20 October 2026.

FamilySearch Family Tree

FamilySearch's help center says that for a source that is not on FamilySearch you enter the title, web page, citation and notes by hand, and give enough detail that another person can find it. In the source form of a person's profile, create a new source and fill in the fields like this:

Title: Cambridge High and Latin School yearbook, 1928
Web page: https://archive.org/details/cambridgehighlat1928unse/page/n42
Citation: Cambridge High and Latin School, yearbook for 1928, image 42, entry for A. Bernice Chute. Digital image, Internet Archive, accessed 20 October 2026.
Notes: Printed as "A. Bernice Chute (Bernie)", 14 Orchard Street, came from Agassiz Grammar School. Also on https://theclassalbum.com/p/a-bernice-chute-1928

When you attach it, give a reason, such as "Shows she attended this school and graduated in 1928". Keep the reason to what the page shows.

WikiTree

WikiTree profiles use footnotes written between ref tags, directly after the sentence they support, with a "Sources" heading near the bottom whose references tag prints the notes. See WikiTree's Sources Style Guide. In the profile's edit box:

Bernice graduated from Cambridge High and Latin School in 1928.<ref>Cambridge High and Latin School, yearbook for 1928, image 42, entry for A. Bernice Chute; [https://archive.org/details/cambridgehighlat1928unse/page/n42 digital copy at the Internet Archive], accessed 20 October 2026.</ref>

== Sources == <references />

Steps

Open the person's page here and note the school, the class year, the "page" and the Internet Archive item shown under Source at the bottom.
Click "View the original scan at the Internet Archive" and look at the page itself. Read the name and the facts you will cite. Our pages are read by software from the scan and a small share of details are wrong (how accurate it is), so cite what the page image says.
Copy the address from your browser while the scan page is open. It ends in /page/n and a number.
Take the yearbook's real title from the cover image, and add it to the citation if it has one.
Paste the format your tree uses, replace the example details, and enter the date you looked.
In the tree, record only what the entry supports. A source note that says "listed at 14 Orchard Street in the 1928 yearbook" is true. A claim about who her parents were is not supported by the yearbook.

Limits to state honestly

A yearbook does not prove identity. Many people shared a name in the same town. Tie the entry to your person with a second source, such as a census page at the same address (see using city directories with a yearbook address).
You do not know who supplied the facts. The student, the family or the staff may have, so treat a nickname or address as what the book printed.
Nicknames and quotations are the book's words. They are not evidence of what the person was like.

If you spot an error on one of our pages, tell us through the link on the page and we will correct it against the scan. New to this? Start with how to find a grandparent in a 1920s yearbook.

Last checked 20 October 2026.