Consider the axiom, “You can’t see the forest for the trees,” or the parable about the blind men and the elephant. They both convey how difficult it is to gain an understanding of the whole when we become lost in the details. The same is true in genealogical research: Evidence is discovered in random order, and a disorganized pile of facts may turn into what genealogists call a “brick wall.”
I’ve found that the best way to clean up the pile and get the project back on track is to create a timeline for each family group. This standard tool of data visualization is a relatively easy one to employ, as it distills and structures details into an accessible, readable order.
First things first: A family group, or marriage unit, is a three-person cluster consisting of two parents and the key child who continues the study’s ancestral line. Documentation for each family group typically begins with the couple’s marriage and ends with the death of the last surviving spouse. It also includes information on the key child, but only until the date he or she marries or becomes an unmarried parent. For the key child’s marriage or parenthood and all subsequent events in his or her life, a separate file is started for his or her own family group.
To create a timeline for each family group, I start by making a chronological list of the date and location for each documented event that I have found. And—most importantly—I cite the source for each piece of information.
It’s even more efficient to organize genealogical findings in chronological order as I gather them. I therefore begin research projects by creating a blank “document links” file for each family group. As I discover sources with information related to their lives, I note the date and location of each life event and follow it with a note or link to the source’s location. Each time I add an event and source to the timeline, I place it in sequential order.
Not only does a story begin to unfold before my eyes, but gaps in research are revealed. For example, I might see that I’ve estimated a couple’s marriage year by the number of years they were listed as married in the 1900 U.S. census, but I have not actually located their marriage record yet. Or I might see that I know where the family group lived in 1850 and 1870, but I haven’t yet found them in the 1860 census. Then my task is to follow up on those gaps and try to fill them so that a client’s project meets the Genealogical Proof Standard.
Organizing information in a timeline really does help make sense of it. For one client’s project at Modern Memoirs, I recently researched three generations of a family that moved back and forth between two states in the 1800s. I discovered two information-rich sources that each contained extensive details about the family’s activities in one of the states and made only general references to the other state. Simply highlighting the key information in each source left me confused. But as soon as I placed the key information from each source into a timeline and spliced the two timelines together, it all became clear. The events suddenly fit together like pieces in a puzzle, and a whole picture came into view, telling a single, though complex, story. The sequence of events allowed me to grasp the motivations behind the family’s moves and to understand the roots of intergenerational financial difficulties and successes.
In addition to giving shape to information, a timeline illuminates the contextual backdrop of our ancestors’ lives. Comparing each family group’s timeline to a timeline of local, state, U.S., and world history helps flesh out a family’s story and may suggest leads on additional topics to research in order to gain a fuller understanding of their lives. In a recent talk my brother-in-law gave to a writing group, I was surprised to hear that he uses the same approach in his work. He is an investigative journalist and author, and each time he tackles a research project he creates what he calls “the chron,” or chronology, to match the events he is studying with the context of the time, whether it’s broad historical trends or details about the weather on a particular day long ago.
Sometimes clients choose to include personal or contextual timelines in their memoirs. An excerpt of one client’s political timeline is shown here to demonstrate how behind-the-scenes tools like timelines can also be used in the final presentation of a book.
Regardless of what we call it or whether it appears in print, a timeline is a key tool in the genealogist’s toolbox, and I encourage clients to use it in their own work, too.