Avoid mistakes by using my 2nd most important genealogy tip - it's all about timelines
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- Опубликовано: 20 июл 2024
- A professional genealogist's secret? My 2nd Most Important Genealogy Tip? Timelines. Here we talk about why genealogists need timelines and I'll provide a bunch of examples - one's gotta work for you. Plus family history timelines will save you lots of time and help you NOT make MISTAKES in your genealogy research. Timelines and charts make genealogy easier.
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0:00 Intro
1:04 Bad Joke
1:25 Why do timelines
3:55 Timeline master document
5:12 Timelines created by your genealogy program
6:39 Basic timeline example
8:10 Line plot timeline
9:04 Census timelines (SUPER helpful)
10:33 Pre-1850 census timelines
12:20 Timelines with sources
12:54 Adding Excel notes
13:49 Colored timelines in Excel or Word Tables
🙋♀️ ABOUT ME: Learning about your ancestors is fun! It’s detective work and exciting! My professional genealogy business, Ancestry Consulting by Aimee, and my You Tube channel were born out of a desire to help others discover their family history. I have been working on my genealogy since a teenager and have been helping others as a professional genealogist for almost 10 years. Whether breaking through a genealogy brick wall, determining parents through DNA matches, beginning genealogy research, or discovering your family origins, I want to help you build your family tree and discover your ancestors! Happy hunting!
#familysearch #familyhistory #ancestry #genealogy #genealogytimelines #timelines
Check out these other genealogy RUclipsrs: Genealogy TV, Family History Fanatics, Geneavlogger, Ancestry (Barefoot Genealogist), Genealogy with Amy Johnson Crow, and of course, keep watching me, Aimee Cross - Genealogy Hints.
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What I'm interested in tracking as well is the historical context. Who was president when an ancestor was born? What was going on in the rest of the world? What was invented during their life, what was going on with the technology? Putting them in context helps me tell a more complete story.
That’s a terrific point. I’ve seen timelines where they add that information under the line with family information on top. Or you can add it in a different color in a table type timeline. It does tell a more complete story and it can also help you research better. Events can direct us to records or explain a relocation or something like that. Great addition! Thank you!
When I was working, I was an Excel geek. My skills are a little rusty, but I'm getting back into Excel and find it handy for research and using text. First, be consistent in what you place in cells. You want to be able to sort or use pivot tables. My question is, how do you handle dates pre-1900? Excel doesn't recognize them, so they don't sort or work in formulas.
I haven’t used them in the way you have. I basically just sort information do the pre 1900 dates are not a problem. I’d love to see what you do though.
I watched this again, You really inspire me. My problem is that I have WAY too much information on WAY too many ancestors from a lifelong quest of research before I began my writing. I don't think I'm alone in the overwhelming task of pulling it all together AND being disciplined enough to put all this into practice. Hope all the young historians will use these wonderful tools and examples to be better historians and write and organize as they find.
You are sweet. But we all struggle with it… or most of us do. I write more for clients than I do for my tree and have plenty of work to do! I would suggest just picking a family line and doing that. If you want later you can put books together but I’ve seen a lot of success with that. It’s not so overwhelming. Good luck!
After a few years of research, I end up adopting a system of timelines similar to your census timeline! I also make extra colums for births, deaths or marriages to keep track of people of the family in those records: for example, for those marriage records when the father is marked as deceased, or a birth record when you find a sister as godmother (then you know is still alive). In my research there are no census records available for most places, so this way I can keep track of places, years and who is still alive and who doesn't.
Other thing I love about those census timelines are great to keep track of all the family and they are not very time consuming as other formats.
Thank you for adding what you do! I love to hear and share these ideas!
Timelines definitely have helped my early to mid 1700s PA research. So many other family trees have so many mistakes that a timeline would fix.
So true! Thanks for adding your experience!
FYI for state abbreviation - AR is Arkansas, AK is Alaska. I love spreadsheets and look forward to trying yours!
I know! I know! Others have mentioned it too! I always mess that state up!! Thanks!!!
I used Timelines for myself and my family to keep track of what happened and when for Scrapbooking. I never really kept a diary other than a few years, but I would note things in calendars. It never occured to me to do a timeline of the Genealogy Family. We had a branch of the Barzydlo family pop up about 20 years ago with a letter from someone from Chicago, IL. I have no idea if this branch is connected to us but it seems to be prior to my Grandfather arriving in America. Another great problem I've run into is the changing of spelling of my grandfather and other relatives names. A relative was in census records up to age 12 and disappeared, can't find a notice of death, but I don't believe they were naturalized at this point. I found it occurred even from census to census, but the address and people were the same, my eyes just skipped over the spelling for years because I knew it was them. Time to start a timeline of that branch and my own, but I'm not good at Excel, actually have never used it other than one or two times. I do mine in tables in my Word Perfect which I've used for years.
I think you should use whatever program works for you!
I use timelines all the time, mostly the ancestry ones, because they are easier and there with all the other info BUT I add heaps of extra facts, and lots of random information in the description boxes, including sources - I create custom events for whatever suits, ‘context’ for whatever else might be happening in the family (marriage of children is a good one) or the world, query for where something is missing or doesn’t make sense to remind me now, or later, to check it out, ‘joes possible father?’ added to any male in the family 9 months before the birth of an illegitimate child (especially after dna testing since there are usually several candidates - quickly weeds out too young, too old too far away etc. I leave the fact there so I remember why I wiped them out). Newspaper snippets, especially of sailors is a big help. All sorts of random information that might, or might not, help me or someone else who stumbles across my ancestor. Ancestry tends to lump all sorts of odd facts like schools, voting, etc into residence but I add them seperately so I can work out which family members moved in and out of the household between elections a couple of months apart, as well as between census (which we don’t have here in Australia). If I have multiple images of a person I use a facts box and add the photo from the gallery as a ‘media’ for the event. Even those tiny photos in the fact box can show how someone ages, who they are with and if they don’t fit. Without destroying my naming pattern, there’s no way of rearranging images in ancestry’s gallery (personal peeve)
Absolutely brilliant! Thanks for sharing. I add facts sometimes too but not to the extend you do and I love it! Way to go!
I accept the residence hints of ancestry but then look at the source later and reorganize that on my timeline usually with a different label. Ancestry putting schools as residence and phone book as residence threw me until I realized they were doing it. I have ancestors in the countryside and yes they were in the phonebook of the biggest town in their area, but the details show they were not in the town the phonebook came from and they absolutely wouldn't have considered themselves from what they would have called "the city". My high school was a 45 minute drive from my home, so when I saw the town my high school is from listing as a residence for me, I laughed and then I realized that ancestry was doing that for my mom and my grandmother's residences and how ancestry's in the right region but not quite right for residence.
Amy - you are4 my new favortite go to for tips. Thank you for your strightforward manner and insightful advice.
Wow, thank you!
Growing up, I’ve heard that my great grandfather was abusive and an alcoholic. When my great grandmother died, the children who were not able to live on their own were put into different homes. Speaking with different family members, I hear different stories, 1- the state took them away because of his lifestyle, 2- he traded them for alcohol, 3- the church took them to place them in a safe home. Someone I didn’t know existed found me and his mom was one that got adopted out. She ended up abandoning him at a young age, so he has no idea what to put when doctors ask about illnesses that run in your family. I have been collaborating with him and it’s helping us to see which story is most likely the truth. It paints a better picture of why my grandfather was the way he was, I see him in a very different way. While searching, we found arrest records of family members. It shows me that some of the older children followed their father’s footsteps, then their children as well. My question is on appropriation of attaching these types of records? I have a different family line found news articles on them that are positive. I feel when doing my trees, I go into this time, like a fly on the wall, to understand how each person has lived. It helps me with being confident that the correct people are attached. I even go to Facebook groups for the town they lived in (the ones that are focused on the history) and search for photos. But is it appropriate to attach the negative findings and leaving the tree public on ancestry? And I only attach them to those who are deceased.
Great questions Mandy. First off way to go. I love your idea of using Facebook the way you are. I’m really glad that you’re conscious about what you’re putting up for somebody that’s living or deceased. As far as adding negative articles to somebody, that is deceased, I really think it’s a personal question. I have done so with a public newspaper articles, because I feel like anybody could really find them. I do have some personal family paper so that I probably wouldn’t put up. I really love how sensitive you are to the issue though!
Good stuff. Sometimes it's obvious when two people aren't the same - they can't have lived in Kentucky, had a baby in England three months later, only to have a baby back in Kentucky again 6 months later, or died in another state three months before they got married. Sometimes it's not so obvious so a timeline is helpful.
Haha! Great example!!
I have used excel for a myriad of timelimes and thry have been invaluable for noting errors and faulty assumptions. Thank you for this reminder and for the review of the many ways to use this tool.
You're very welcome!
Thanks Aimee. Just order the spreadsheet....Will come in handy. Great Show
Thank you! Hope the spreadsheet helps you too!
This was great, Aimee!
Thank you!
Great information, thank you!
You bet!
Wow! After 40 years of research you may have just changed my life! I really, really can see this helping with some of my issues. Thank you!
Yeah! Happy to hear it!!!
This is so cool thanks for making videos for newbies like me 😊 I am just starting and all this is fascinating and I'm addicted. Thank God people like you make these videos
So happy to hear they are helping. Thank you Anna
Hi Aimee! FYI...Arkansas is abbreviated as AR. Alaska is AK, and Arizona is AZ. Oh, and Alabama is AL. :) Good content!
Hahaha!!! Thanks for catching that!!
I love watching your videos❤
I use timelines a lot from 1880-1900. Why did we have to lose the 1890 census😢??
I think timelines can be helpful and tricky when couples separate and remarry. Sometime the wife will say she is widowed, but really she is divorced. Some men will also say they single
The main benefit is that it helps me confirm if the person I am looking for is them or not. I get surprised by how many people have such similar names and DOB and parents born in the same state.
Thank you Nathan. Great examples of good uses for timelines. Thanks for adding.
I’ve seen others, who have the same ancestor as me make the HUGE booboo of having their death in one area and year but buried in a totally different place....the year BEFORE! 😅
😄 that’s funny.
To get the Master Timeline document join the RUclips channel as part of Aimee's Crew or order on Etsy: tinyurl.com/etsytimeline
This is fantastic information Aimee! I purchased and downloaded the spreadsheet and just have a quick question. To start imputting my information on the sheets, do I just imput them over your sample information? I don't want to lose the algorithm already in place. I'm excited to get started on this. Thank you for your time and expertise.
Thanks for getting the spreadsheet! Make a copy of the spreadsheet first so you can go back to it if you make a mistake. Then in the copy, yes, put your information over it. Have fun! Great question - thanks!
@@AncestryAimee Thank you, Aimee! Much appreciated.
I’m curious, how many people from Louisiana have consulted with you about their trees? Mainly those whose families were exiled from Acadia. Using this timeline topic is how I discovered just how many errors I have. With surnames and it being predominantly Catholic, they don’t keep the name they were originally called, they are switched to their name at baptism. Also, the abrupt switch in language, my goodness. But it begs the question of how would you compare doing a tree with this particular background compared to others? I have a different, but I’ll just do a new comment for that one
I’m not sure. I end up in Louisiana often and I’ve done hundreds of projects. I’d say at least a couple of dozen times.
Glad the timeline video helped you discover some errors though!!!
AK is Alaska and AR is Arkansas
I know… I know… I have always messed that up even though I know better! You aren’t the first to mention it. Thank you for keeping me honest!! 😉
My biggest problem is DNA that tells me one thing and my tree tells me something else. When your DNA goes back to 998 you have a lot of blank space in your tree. If I had the money I'd hire someone to work with me, but that will never happen.
Remember DNA thrulines are based on others trees and can be incorrect too. Keep watching videos and free classes like those at Rootstech and learn more so you can work it out.
THIS. ive lost count f how any tres that either list the parents after the supposed children, or they'll have the person living somewhere 20 years after death
So true!
With black Americans we really did move more due to slave owners moving then after slavery many former slaved moved to different parts of the south and the The Great Migration made many of my family go north.
Thank you for adding that! I’ve seen that very often and it’s important to keep in mind.
@@AncestryAimee A lot of people moved to Alabama during and after slavery especially from North Carolina.