Welcome to the Biographical Register of the University of St Andrews, which holds details of St Andrews alumni, officers and graduates from 1579 to 1897. 

Data has been drawn from Robert N. Smart’s two publications – the Alphabetical register of the students, graduates and officials of the University of St Andrews, 1579-1747 published in 2012 and the Biographical Register of the University of St Andrews, 1747-1897  published in 2004. The project to convert it to database format was undertaken between 2013 and 2024 by colleagues within the University Libraries and Museums and Research Computing teams. 

You can search here for information about students’ degree courses and qualifications, their dates of birth or baptism, their parentage, place of schooling and attendance at other institutions of higher learning.  The database also records anything that is known about each student’s subsequent career and date and place of death.  If publications by the student have been traced these are listed too. 

Guidance on how to search the database, and information about the source documents used, can be found on the About and Sources pages.