12 August 2019

A Great Tool for Placing Your Ancestors in History

Names, dates, and places are seldom interesting by themselves. To bring our ancestors to life, we need to know what was happening in the world around them. A little-known website that has been around for many years offers an easy and fun way to get historical context about your ancestors into your genealogy research. The site is called dMarie Time Capsule and you can find it here.

Unlike many websites, this one has few bells and whistles. In fact, it looks rather plain and sparse. However, it is filled with thousands of bits of historical trivia that will bring a special date to life in seconds. Type in a date and discover what was happening in the world at that time. Starting with the year 1800, you can find news headlines, presidents, and people born on a particular day. After 1880, you can also find top songs and prices for goods. After 1900, you can add books and toys, and after 1948, television shows. The last year for which there is data is 2002.



Begin by typing a date in the blue rectangle and then decide whether you want the computer to generate a page for you (Quick Page) or whether you want to customize your own (Advanced Page). The latter allows you to add personal touches, such as family events, and pick and choose among a list provided. If you choose to customize your page, you will be guided sequentially through the list of headlines, birthdays, songs, TV shows, top new toys, and popular books so you can personalize each category.

Here is a Quick Page generated for 13 August 1950, when, as you can see, stamps were three cents each and many of us were watching the Ed Sullivan Show while humming "Mona Lisa," by Nat King Cole, and playing "Clue," a hot new toy of that year.


A button above the title (not pictured) gives you a printable version that you can print from the screen or copy/paste into another file by taking a screen shot. There is also an option for starting over, in case you want to do more than one.

Have fun while you bring your family to life!















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