Genealogy Hack: What is a Timeline for Genealogy?

What is a timeline? Most people learn about timelines in school for their history classes. A timeline is a list of events in a chronological form. History classes use this tool as a way for people to remember dates and places. However, we use timelines as a genealogy hack to show the dates and places of our ancestors. These timelines can correspond with historical events, but they can also just be about one person and their life.

A timeline is a simple organizing tool that genealogists use for many reasons such as to track people’s events in their lives, to sort out multiple documents for an ancestor, to organize locations for an ancestor who moved a lot, to organize health information such as a pattern of death at a certain age over generations, etc.

How do you create a timeline?

You can create this genealogy hack by using a simple word document with a bullet list. This can do the job quite effectively. You can also get more elaborate by downloading a template or making your own chart. If you’re a visual person then making a timeline using a mind mapping tool such as Scapple will help. It’s up to you how simple or complex you want to get.

You first want to ask yourself why you want to create your timeline. Do you have multiple documents for one person? Does your family have the same name for multiple generations? Did your family move a lot and you want to keep the locations straight? How about adding historical facts to your ancestor’s timeline to find new documents? What is your reason for making this timeline?

For example, I put my great-grandmother’s life into a timeline in order to understand her journey better. The image below shows just the events that affected her life from her family. I could have easily added any historical events such as wars or economic disasters that I wanted, but I didn’t want to get this one too complex.

I used my RootsMagic software program that has this timeline tool built in. Therefore, it generated the report after I put in the specific information that I was looking for. I selected her parents and siblings to be included in her timeline. Therefore, you see when her siblings got married and when her parents died. This report shows her age when the event took place. The report ends with her death.

You can easily just grab a pen and paper and do this same timeline if you don’t have a computer program that will do this. However, I encourage you to look into personal genealogy programs that will help you keep everything straight as you research. Roostmagic is my favorite, but there are more out there.

More examples of genealogy timelines

Here is my great grandmother’s family timeline with a more complex look. This involves all of the family this time and not just the events that affected her. Again, this was made using the RootsMagic program. This list shows her immediate family, but unfortunately it doesn’t show how each person is related to my great grandmother. However, you see how it can get pretty complex if you want it to.

Let me show you two examples of a specific topic. I wanted to know how my family migrated over the generations. Therefore, I made a timeline of just one branch of my family. As you can see, we didn’t really leave New York until 1887 and then we traveled all over.

Another simple timeline shows the death dates and ages of this same family branch. I was curious to see when my ancestors died over the generations.

What is a timeline for genealogy? It’s an awesome genealogy hack and organizing tool that will help you make sense of your family. We aren’t required to keep it all in our heads! This one simple tool will help you be a better genealogist. If nothing else, it will satisfy your curiosity about your family. So go try it today! What do you want to know about your family? Make a timeline and find out!

Good luck and happy hunting!

Tiffany

P.S. Are you still feeling stuck with your genealogy? I’m here to help! Contact me to get a free 30 minute consultation about anything American or Scandinavian genealogy related. It’s that simple!

Want more organization tips? Try this post How Do You Organize Your Genealogy? or this post How can Pedigree Charts and Family Group Sheets Help Me Become a Better Genealogist for starters.

For more genealogy hacks, then click on the links below:

• Genealogy Hacks for Researching Your Ancestors
• Genealogy Hack: Read the Genealogy Directions
• Genealogy Hack: Stay Focused