How Do I Build a First Timeline?

First checks before you go further

Build a first timeline as a dated list with a source note for each line, leaving gaps open where you have no source. A first timeline is a working document, and its gaps are the research plan.

Where a clue comes from a relative, note who supplied it and when. A clue supplied decades later carries different weight from one written at the time. Write the match standard for this person before you search, and hold every candidate to it. A standard written after the search will always fit the result.

How do you work through it step by step?

Steps that look bureaucratic, noting references, dating entries, separating lists, are the steps that keep a long research project honest. The steps below assume you have already fixed the person, the number, and the dates as far as you can. If you have not, do that first, and then return. When you close a record, write one line saying what it proved, what it suggested, and what it left open. Three lines per record keep a project honest.

1. Name the clue exactly: what it is, what it says, and what it does not say.
2. Choose the first record that clue points to, and note its reference before opening it.
3. Extract only dated facts from that record, and add them to a first timeline with source notes.
4. Let the first timeline choose the second record, and keep guesses in a separate list until a record joins them.

Where this kind of research usually stalls

Change one filter at a time, spelling, initials, number, unit or date range, and keep a note of which combinations you have already tried. A person recorded under a middle name, a nickname, or a stepfather surname will not be found by a search on the name you know. Collect name variants first. Note dead ends in the timeline itself, with dates. A timeline that shows where the trail went cold is more honest, and more useful, than one that jumps the gap.

Making sense of what you find

Corrections, crossings out and later additions are part of the evidence, not damage to it. A record corrected at the time tells you something changed. A name entered in a different hand, or in different ink, may have been added later, for a later purpose. Ask when an entry was made, not only what it says. When two sheets give different dates for the same event, note both, check which sheet was written first, and let the earlier sheet carry the timeline, with a note of the disagreement.

What to open after this one

A next step that requires a holder, a visit, or a copy order should be planned, not improvised: fix the reference first, then approach the holder. The cluster around this guide is a chain, not a shelf. Reading it in chain order, following the links at the foot of each page, keeps the person in view.

Before you open the next record, write down what you expect it to show and what would surprise you. That note is what turns reading into testing. The next record should answer a question this one raised, not repeat what you already know.