Wales School Records

School records may contain valuable information about your ancestor, such as his name, place of birth or residence, father’s name, and some biographical detail.

Education for the general population in Wales was limited before the nineteenth century. The British and Foreign Schools Society founded many schools in the early to mid-nineteenth century. In 1870 the Education Act called for the election of school boards in areas where privately organized schools were deficient. Public education to the age of 13 was made compulsory in 1880.

Records for public education before 1870 are difficult to find. Records that do survive are usually found in county record offices. See the "Archives and Libraries" section of this outline to locate addresses for these offices.

If your ancestor was educated in a British college or university, he may be in the institution’s enrollment records and alumni books. Some of these records have been published, notably for the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Records of universities can be found in the Locality Search of the Family History Library Catalog under the city in which the university was located and the subject "Schools."

School records held at the Family History Library are listed in the Place Search of the Family History Library Catalog under:

WALES - SCHOOLS

WALES, [COUNTY] - SCHOOLS

WALES, [COUNTY], [PARISH] - SCHOOLS