Week 34 Timeline

“Timelines are a great research tool. What discovery have you made after putting together an ancestor’s timeline? Have you thought about how everyday life changed for an ancestor during his or her life? Feel free to post your links and stories in the comments.” prompt from Amy Johnson Crow

I have to admit I have never used timelines in my research, not in a timeline format anyway. When I write about a specific ancestor I tend to write birth to death so, kind of the same. A timeline might be a more compact version. I can see how it would be helpful to make a timeline when organizing my stories. It would be easier to make sure I put everything in the correct order. It would also help me see if there are conflicts in my sources.

I found a number of sources for information on how to make and use timelines. Some of the main tree building sites include a timeline as you add in the sources for each person. I am thinking it would be most helpful for me to use timelines with ancestors I need to research further. It would allow me to see the gaps in my research so I could focus on those areas.

Cindi’s List has the most comprehensive list of sources for timelines. She has 19 links for everything from webinars to downloadable tip sheets. There are links for historical timelines, I like to add history to my ancestor stories because it often explains the why. Lives are so intertwined with what is happening in the world at the time someone lived. Just use the example of a World Wide Pandemic such as we experienced and you know how much it affected all of our lives.

I liked the site called Owlcation. Maybe it has something to do with the name but, she also has a very basic down to earth description of what a timeline is and what types of events might be included. She offers a few sources for a downloadable templates.

Ancestry has at least one video about creating a timeline. It’s only about 17 minutes. I like the way she created this one with a word document. Some prefer excel, or evernote or whatever program works best for you. In the video she actually takes you through the steps of creating the timeline and she adds her notes on the timeline for what needs to be done next. I’m going to trying this one soon. The name is “Creating Timelines to Better Understand Records and Families”. You can find it here.

I like the map feature on Family Search associated with the timelines. The photo above shows the page for my great great grandmother Melissa Alice Minson. There are 5 headings in the light bluish bar, click on the one that says About. One of the headings you will see is Time line. If you scroll to the bottom of Timeline there is a clickable link saying View With Map, click that link.

Now the timeline is on the left and a map on the right. Her map has 6 events in Ohio and 20 in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and Kansas. You can click again on whichever place you prefer. I clicked the 20 and it divided up even further to what is below.

Next I clicked the 2 in south central Nebraska. Each of the numbers shows how many events I have for her that took place in the tagged locations. I think it’s a fun feature. Here is what happens when you get down to the final clickable link.

The little blue house is where they were living and you can see in the timeline on the left the corresponding event is now highlighted in blue as well. In 1885 when Melissa was 21 she was living in Franklin, Nebraska.

The timeline of events on Ancestry includes more of the historical events, personal photos and actual documents. It is called a Life Story and has a lot of in depth detail which maybe is the reason I have never felt I needed to make a timeline of my own. It also has a clickable map to explore where she was living when the different events occurred. I think the ability to add notes and source notations on my own timeline would be very helpful. If only there were more hours in each day!

Do you use timelines in your research? What is your favorite tool to use when you make a timeline? Do you use maps with your timelines? If you don’t are you considering using them now?