How to Make a Family History Timeline

In this article we are going to learn more about how to create a family history timeline which is a little more comprehensive than the standard research version. The basic timelines will tend to focus on an individual or couple, gathering the events of their lives and important facts. A family history timeline however can be used as an engaging way to explain the history of the family and also potentially add historical context.

What Does a Family History Timeline Do?

As mentioned the key use of a family history timeline is to track the path of family members through the events of their lives. This is used as a way to aid our overall research and detect milestones in our ancestors' lives that may be missing and require further research.

It Helps Organization

If you have been active in building your family tree for some time you may have found yourself confused from time to time about the order of events in an ancestor's life. It’s a lot to keep in your brain and you may have to think twice about a fact such as: did your grandfather marry your grandmother before or after serving in a war?

Other more basic facts like beginning and ending an occupation can definitely become confused but they may be significant to your overall research. A timeline then allows you to create a physical chart that you can refer to and see an organized, chronological path through your ancestors' life.

May Indicate Effects of History

As our ancestors lived their lives, society around them was also progressing and changing. Sometimes looking at an ancestor's timeline we may see the effects of the society and time they were living in. This can be entry into the military because of a war starting, leaving their home nation because of political unrest or poverty.

If you compare a timeline of local history to your ancestor's history you may see notable correlations and by inference the impact of their social, political and economic circumstances.

Identifies Gaps

When we correlate all of the information we have about an ancestor into a timeline we can expose gaps in our research. It can also tell us where our ancestors were during certain periods of time. A large gap in our knowledge in a certain area may indicate nothing new occurred or that our ancestors may be found living elsewhere for a time.

A gap in an ancestor's timeline may indicate something like a stint in prison which may be born out by researching legal records in the region. You may be surprised to discover a small prison stay for an ancestor.

As an example my own great grandmother and her sister spent 24 hours in jail for attempted bigamy and assisting attempted bigamy respectively. In my great grandmother's defense she had been separated from her first husband for several years but had just not gotten a divorce. She would eventually marry the man involved in the case several decades later.

How to Build a Family History Timeline

Family history timelines do not have to be complicated in fact they can be created simply using Microsoft Word or some other similar program.

Create a Chart Template

A basic timeline chart is very easy to create in a Word document. Choose the insert tab, click the add table icon and choose the number of columns and rows you want to start your table with. In a standard time line chart you will need six columns. These columns should read from left to right Date, Age, Event, Place, Source and Notes

You can alter the width of the columns as you see above to be more suitable for the data that will be included. Date and Age for example do not need as much room as an address or notes might require. Clicking on the right side margin of the column and holding the left mouse button will allow you to drag the line resizing it to be broader or narrower as needed.

If you are more advanced in your skill with such tables you can make it more engaging but as a start point this is what you need first.

Fill in the Table With What You Know

With a physical chart to work with you can now begin inputting the facts from your research. Give the chart a name such as Timeline (Person's name) and then start to input the relevant details. The first event listed obviously should be the individual's birth.

As you can see from the first row filled in the table above this is not a difficult table to fill out if you have the correct information. However below we are going to supply a few tips for all of the relevant columns.

• Date: This is the exact or approximate date or range of dates that an event occurred in your ancestor's life. This should be written in a basic day, month, year format for example 07 Mar 1799.
• Age: Your ancestor's approximate age at the time
• Event: Brief description of what happened and the main person involved for example “Marriage of Peter Johnson to Mary Claymore”
• Place: Indicate the town/township, county, state and country where the event likely took place. If this is not clear use terms like “probably in” or “probable location”
• Source: A short description of the source used to support the information you have recorded. This could be a basic description or a short form citation.
• NO.: This number corresponds to where you have stored your full source citation. It is advised for organizational purposes that genealogists should number all their pertinent family documents and give full citations to the origin of these records. Using the number in this column you can confirm the details by locating the original document related to them.
• Notes: This can be notes not mentioned in the basic information and potential opinions and inferences that can be made from the record. As an example a birth record may list an individual as the third child born to the mother. This means at least two others have officially been born to the mother. They may not have survived but they were considered born.

Include Major Historic Events for Context

If you have looked into the history of a region that your ancestors were living in, you may be aware of notable events that occurred during their lifetime. These might be on a national scale or even on a more local scale.

As an example your ancestor may have worked at the town mill for most of their life. You may discover in a local historic newspaper that the mill burned down or went out of business on a certain date. This would have been a significant event in that ancestor's life and would have impacted their way of making a living.

After a major historical event you may notice changes in your ancestors' stories moving forward. They may move to a poorer or more prosperous neighborhood or they may move to another country altogether. A switch in political leadership may also cause a change in your ancestor's life or a conflict may draw them into a war.

Because of the potential for improving your understanding of the life your ancestor was living, adding events that happened where they lived can be very helpful. So don’t forget to research the place your ancestors were living and the people who may have been their neighbors.

Final Thoughts

The family history timeline can help us so much with our research efforts. It is a great visual representation of the path our ancestors took in life and it helps us understand the things we may yet have to discover.

Neil Edwards

Genealogist and family-tree research specialist

Neil was born in Shropshire, England surrounded by centuries of living history. His interest in the past has been a lifelong passion leading to undergraduate degrees in both Economic History & Geography and History & Politics.

This interest in history quickly translated to family history when he moved to the U.S. in 2010. It was here that he began working on his own family tree as well as that of his American wife. That research allowed him to gain a wealth of experience working with both U.S. and European genealogical documents and studying their best uses in researching family history.

Following 9 years of honing his genealogical research skills, Neil was proud to have earned a certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University in late 2019. Neil also took part in the research process for a Duke University study into the families of 19th Century UK Members of Parliament.

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