Beginning Lesson #23
Time Lines

DearREADERS,
The challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to place your ancestor in the context of history by creating an actual time line with markers as follows:

Those items ABOVE the line indicate significant events in the LIFE of your ancestor
Those items BELOW the line indicate significant events in the LOCALITY of your ancestor

Here's a fictitious example:

John Henry Taylor

If we considered only the actual events we know of in his life (above the time line indicator) we would mistakenly believe that John moved from Henderson to Wilson County somewhere between 1887 and 1889. In fact, he never moved, but due to expanding growth in the immediate area, his county was split into two jurisdictions. We would need to check both counties for records on this ancestor.

If we are not aware of the specific history of an area, we would have completely missed the possibility that John had served in the American Revolutionary War. While Revolutionary War Service files are pretty cut and dry, the pension request files and bounty land records are a goldmine for genealogists. The DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) continue to support and collect valuable lineage information, including obscure bible extracts. If any ancestor was on the American continent and alive at the time of the Revolution, don't disregard this resource. The ancestor may have been too old to fight, but may have rendered patriotic service by providing food, clothing, wagons, horses, etc. to the cause. See also: P. William Filby's Bibliography of American County Histories.

A well-designed time line reflects the types of federal and colonial/state records created during the time period. To accurately list these, one must study the US and individual state research outlines I refer to often as being available at your local LDS Family History Center. When I need to help a patron in an area I have not had much experience researching, I consult these guides to get my bearings. Be sure to see: Family Search.org's Blank Time Line.

Genealogy software programs are now including a time line capability to create personal historical times lines comparing:

• one ancestor in your database to another person(s) in your database

• your ancestor to a database of historical events

For a good article on this subject see:  Amy Johnson, Crowe, CG Using Timelines to Re-evaluate Data from Genealogical Computing

Specialized software includes: Timeline Maker by Progeny. By checking today, I found links to 57 locality-based timelines that can be added to enhance the program.

 
For Further Reading:

• Cyndi's List - Timelines: http://www.cyndislist.com/timeline.htm 

• Smith,Juliana Multi-Functional Time Lines

PS - City Directories? I can just hear you now trying to tell me that there were no telephones at the turn of the 19th century. True, but early city directories listed individuals, addresses and their usual occupation. Aha! Another clue.  -- Just trying to keep you thinking!

Happy family tree climbing!
Myrt     :)
DearMYRTLE,
Your friend in genealogy

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