By Frankie Meyer
Globe Columnist
JOPLIN, Mo. —
While on the quest of family history, make the extra effort to fill out a timeline of the events in the life of each of your ancestors. This approach will help identify gaps in your research, and it will also enhance your family history.
A timeline form is sometimes called a biographical outline. One example of the form is available at the Web site of Family Tree Magazine. That site is located at www.familytreemagazine.com/freeforms. When the site opens, click on “Basic Charts and Worksheets.” When the next screen opens, scroll down to “Biographical Outline” and click on either “PDF” or “TEXT” for a free download of the form.
Notice that the form allows you to list many events. The form has a place to record the date of each event, the age of your ancestor when it occurred, details about the event, and the source of the info. Events that are usually listed on timeline sheets are the birth of the person, marriages, births of children and death. Documentation for these events often consists of Bible records, birth certificates, church records, marriage certificates, death certificates, obituaries, and cemetery records.
As you list those types of events on your sheet, leave several spaces to insert other events related to education, military service, church membership, illnesses, journeys that the ancestor made from one area to another, and land purchases.
Since a knowledge of the local history will help you and other descendants better understand the circumstances of your ancestor’s life, you will also want to list historical events that affected your ancestor’s life. Some examples are battles, Dust Bowl years, Great Depression, Gold Rush, Butterfield stagecoach service, Kansas and Nebraska Act, Oklahoma Land Rush, Prohibition, floods, boundary changes which affected the areas where the ancestors lived, beginning of the railroad service in the area, first cars in the area, and the introduction of electricity to the area.
Depending on the ancestor’s ethnic background, researchers will want to add other types of details, too.
Families of Native American Indian descent will want to include info about their tribe, such as the years that the tribe was moved from one part of the country to another. Families of African American descent will want to include events such as the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Families whose ancestors immigrated from Ireland might include details about famines that occurred during that time period. Many Jewish families will want to include details about the Holocaust.
Information about historical events can be found at libraries, county archives, National Archives, museums, historic sites and historical programs, as well as the Internet.
