Tuesday - Timelines

I find that one of the best tools when researching a family or person is a timeline. When you think of timelines, it helps you put in to perspective, what was really going on during their life and how they lived. A good example is when you’re researching people during the civil war era. I had a relative that I wrote about Claridon Campbell. He lived in Iowa. He fought all over the South and was discharged in Alabama. So the soldiers didn’t just simply jump in their cars and drive back to Iowa. Most of them walked or rode in wagons or horses. Can you imagine riding in a wagon or on a horse from Alabama to Iowa? Not me! 

Timelines are great when you look at the home life of ancestors. Did they have cars? Did they have electric? Did they have running water? 

Timelines are great when you want to know what is going on in the world. Was there a war going on? Was there a natural disaster that took place? What was the economy like? What famous people were alive? What inventions were in place? What famous people was a live when your relatives were alive. You can choose the type of timeline you want to know about or combine them.  There are many websites that can help you find a timeline of these items as well. I have a link to one here on the blog.

Timelines are even more important when you’re fortunate enough to connect ancestors to royalty of any kind. Once you make a connection to a Knight, King, Queen or someone of importance, there are excellent records. Why? Because if you wanted you’re descendants to take your position or be your heir you made sure that your had your blood line made.  

 I found a very interesting chart on a family website while I was looking for information on a new line in my tree. The owner had a chart of 600 years of direct descendents of a family name. The chart had the name and date/place of birth/deaths. The names were in bold color boxes, just a simple, but cool looking chart. Then under the colored boxes was a time line, so you can see when each person was alive; what war or famous King/Queen was ruling at the time. The time line was a bit hard to read, if you print it out by the way it was done, but it was still an awesome idea. So of course it got me thinking. This would be a great way to show the different lines, in a simple way. You can even print them out on really nice paper and frame them for gifts. Now I know that the family tree programs make all different types of charts, but I haven’t seen it simplified on one page of 600 years of people with the time line. The timeline really put stuff in a wonderful perspective. It wasn’t just a bunch of boxes with lines connecting them.


So I started to search online for timeline websites, so I can develop a better chart and do something similar. I found an awesome site. This site not only is helpful for genealogy research, but would be great for kids doing homework or research on events. It is loaded with information.




Even when you choose a time line to look at, you can click on it individual and you get even more information on the person or event! The website is http://www.timelineindex.com/. It gives you a index of any Who, What, When, and Where. Gives you people, events, period of time, places, objects…goes on and on. You can even put a widget on your own website to show a time line, like I did on this blog page. They give you options in the login area that you can even create a timeline. I have been researching this site and have started to make my own timeline chart in excel, so I can then have a readable timeline next to ancestor charts to print out like I saw on another site. These will be great for a simple look at your ancestors next to a time line. You can see if your Great Great Great Grandfather was around when George Washington was around, when Lewis and Clark explored, or when Queen Elizabeth I was alive. Things you wouldn’t naturally think of, but can see in a chart. So check it out, make your own time line of what is important for the time period your researching. Because if you see that your relative was alive during the Revolutionary War, there is a good chance that he could have been a solider. What is the date of immigration? Was it during the time period that Ellis Island was open? If so, I would check there records. It can be very helpful, and I hope this website I found can be helpful for you if you haven’t discovered it for yourself yet. If you have found a great timeline website, please let me know in comments!