How To Find Your Teacher Ancestors

There are many resources online that can help you research your relatives

The National Archives’ website has online guides covering teachers’ records and teachertraining: bit.ly/tna-teacher-records and bit.ly/ tna-teacher-training. Public and grammar schools’ own archives may include staff records and yearbooks, while local and county archives hold surviving records for day schools, Sunday schools, local education authority schools, and former National or British schools – search for them via TNA’s online catalogue at discovery. nationalarchives.gov.uk.

The Church of England Records Centre holds National Society records ( lambeth palacelibrary.org/content/cerccollections), while the British & Foreign School Society

Archive is part of Brunel University Archives, and its catalogue is online: bfss.org.uk/archive. The archives of teacher-training colleges will include admission registers, photos, etc.

Findmypast has Teachers Registration Council registers 1914–1948 ( bit.ly/fmptrcr) and First World War-era trade union records ( bit.ly/fmp-trade), while Ancestry has teachers in Ireland (1826) at bit.ly/anc-teachireland and TheGenealogist has the Teachers Registration Council’s register for 1917: bit.ly/ gene-teachers. The Modern Records Centre at the University of Warwick holds the National Union of Teachers’ records for 1870–2010: mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/NUT.