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Find Oxford and Cambridge students

If your ancestor was a gentleman from the upper classes, or had a profession that required an academic education, it’s likely they attended university. Before the 19th Century, this would have been Oxford or Cambridge – the only English universities at the time – or Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow or St Andrews in Scotland.

University alumni records can provide valuable information, including age of students, place of birth, previous schooling, parentage, siblings’ names, degree(s) and subsequent employment or military service. Because it was common for members of a family to attend the same university, you may find entries spanning several generations.

Browse Oxford records

Joseph Foster’s Alumni Oxoniensis was published in 1891, listing all known students and teachers at Oxford University. It consists of eight volumes – four covering 1500 to 1714, the others 1715 to 1886. This was continued in 1893 by Foster’s Oxford Men and their Colleges 1880-1892.

Both records are stored on the Internet Archive, but rather than going straight there you should visit their Wikipedia page: www.snipca.com/49434. Look under the Publications heading and you’ll see four links to the Alumni Oxoniensisby surname (A-D, E-K, L-R, S-Z). Click ‘online version’ next to one and you’ll be taken to the Internet Archive, where you can search top left.

I clicked the E-K link and searched for ‘Fricker’ ( 1in our screenshot left), hoping to find someone from a minor gentry family in Wiltshire who form part of my family tree. It came up with one entry on page 497 for Henry Fricker 2 . Clicking to the page, I saw that he attended Wadham College, gaining a BA in 1733 and an MA four years later 3 .

Also on that Wikipedia page is the link for Oxford Men and their Colleges– again, clicking ‘online version’ takes you to the Internet Archive.

Browse Cambridge records

It’s a similar process for searching Cambridge University records, which are called Alumni Cantabrigiensisand cover the 1200s up to 1900. Visit Wikipedia (www.snipca.com/49403) then click one of the links under the Volumes heading. Note they’re ranked by actual surname, not initial letter – so ‘Abbas – Cutt