Genealogical Timelines Can Be Wonderful Research Tools!

Now that summer is in full "Hot" mode, many of us are spending these sunny, sticky days indoors where the air conditioning can be a lifesaver. If you are one of those folks, perhaps it means you are also refocusing on your genealogy and looking for ways to solve baffling problems. One overlooked tool that may help you is a timeline. Let's look at what timelines are and how they might solve genealogical mysteries.

A timeline is basically a way to organize someone's life in chronological order. It can be as simple as listing age, date, event, or a bit more detailed, with sources, locations, notes, or other added information. Why should you use them? They can help you:

• Place your family in historical context
• Place them in a specific location at a specific time
• Track their migration
• Sort out people with similar or same names
• Identify gaps where you need to do more research

You can create timelines by hand with just a legal tablet or lined paper, but if you are comfortable with technology, a timeline is easy to create using software like Excel or in a table or a word processing file in Microsoft Word or any similar application. Most genealogy computer programs will generate timelines, and, easiest of all, there are websites and free forms you can use to just fill in the blanks.

On the St. Louis Genealogical Society website, there is a free handout you can save or print that contains instructions for creating a timeline and a sample. You can find it here. 

Below, in its simplest form is a timeline for Isaak B. Krinsky, cigar/cigarette manufacturer, an immigrant with a large family in New York at the turn of the twentieth century. As you can see, it's an outline of the man's life that provides a look at how his family grew, where he lived and worked, and one or two milestones he reached along the way.

To make this even more valuable, you might want to add a column for age, perhaps separate those sources into their own column so you could add more detail, and/or add a column for historical events occurring while your person was alive so you could see how they fit into a wider picture.

Using a tool such as this basic timeline allows us to place Isaak's life into broader context. He was part of the huge immigrant influx from Russia/Poland into New York that began just at the time he was arriving. The timeline engenders questions, such as:

• Why did he leave Poland without his wife and two small children?
• What made him start a cigar/cigarette business when he arrived?
• How did he manage to make his business so successful?
• What instigated the strike at his company in 1900? 
• Why did he die just a few days after returning home from a trip abroad?
• What happened to his business after he died?

Timelines provide a visual way to sort and organize, to help us find holes in our research, and to encourage us to ask questions so we can find more information on our ancestors. Go ahead, plunge in!

Additional Resources

"Inside the Guide: Creating Ancestor Timelines," by Rachel Carter, updated 16 January 2019, The Family History Guide Blog,

https://www.thefhguide.com/blog/inside-the-guide-creating-ancestor-timelines/

"Timeline Grids," FamilySearch Wiki, https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Timeline_Grids

"Timelines," Cyndi's List, https://cyndislist.com/timelines

"Using Timelines to Analyze Your Research," Tulsa Library, 

https://www.tulsalibrary.org/sites/default/files/2021-05/UsingTimelinesToAnalyzeYourResearch.pdf

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Timeline_Grids