How can I learn more about my family member who attended CIT/CMU?
Answer
Finding information about students from CMU’s early history can be difficult, as our records from this era are not complete. Additionally, the University Archives do not have copies of student transcripts. To request a copy of a student’s transcript, please contact: thehub@andrew.cmu.edu
The best digital resources for confirming a family member’s attendance are the Thistle yearbooks and the Tartan student newspapers.
Thistle yearbooks have been published every year since 1906. While the yearbooks are a great way of confirming your family member attended CIT/CMU, they have some limits. For example, yearbooks only included seniors, they don't confirm if the individual graduated, and often night students were excluded. If your family member attended but did not graduate or if they were a night student, they might not appear in the yearbook. Also, please note that the search function is only sometimes accurate for yearbooks since the text is sometimes in all caps.
The Tartan student newspaper has been published weekly since 1906. If your family member was active on campus, played sports, or participated in student government or drama productions, they may appear in the Tartan.
You can search across the Thistle and the Tartan (including all of our other digital collections) here: https://digitalcollections.library.cmu.edu/
Put your search inquiry in quotes to get the most accurate search results. Also, when searching a person's name, try using first and/or middle initials. For example, if you are looking for your grandfather and his name is William Carter Davis try searching:
- “William Carter Davis”
- “William C. Davis”
- “W. C. Davis”
Also, try searching for the person’s nickname. For example, try searching for “Will” and/or “Bill” for William Carter Davis.
