Category Archives: TIMELINES

Timelines for family history

The power of the small scale or local timeline

Many local history societies have created small scale time lines for a local area using local knowledge and help to build them. In this way the time line can provide extraordinary detail not just about the location but about individuals that lived or worked there as well.

This is a marvelous opportunity for local historians to pull together their collective resources. If the timelines can be made to be interactive as well, all the better.

Small Scale Time Lines
All sorts of data can be brought into a timeline

Some timelines can be simple and reflect local events in a linear way

An example of this is the Lea Valley and Sheredes site. This approach can be an excellent way to collect data together quickly and simply and gets a project off the ground.

If you want to think bigger than a linear timeline

Take a look at the Herts Memories website to understand the scale of what could be achieved when a community pull together to record a mass of disparate data, it’s quite exciting.

How about creating your own family timeline and meshing it with national and international events?

At Intriguing Family History we are keen to explore resources that can help you with the narrative of your family history story and timelines are an important tool that helps us achieve this. We like to take it a step further and rather than just list the event, prompt discussion about the implications of that event on your family.

Local Timelines
Timelines and Family Trees

You may be an organisation or a club, keen to collect and capture events that surround your activity

A timeline can be a great way to start capturing data. Once the word gets out it’s surprising what a lot of great memories, photos and ephemera people have been hanging onto and it’s a superb way to share. See how the 49th Hertfordshire Regiment have organised their timeline.

Local timelines
Collect dates and images of your local club or organisation

The possibilities are endless

Take a look at a timeline of the events surrounding the assassination of President John F Kennedy


The protection of ideas yields new important collections: Steve Jobs Patent artefacts @ Smithosonian

Steve Jobs honoured with Smithsonian Patent exhibition, what is the significance and resonance with you and your history project….what were the historic origins of intellectual property, copyright and licensing designs, so much of industry still relies on this protection what will happen going forward in an open world where everyone has access to the same knowledge, the start of a series of articles…. more

Historical texts have long been the subject of critical analysis from the writings of the Venerable Bede to the latest releases from the National Archives. Maps too have been analyzed in great depth. We explore what they can  reveal to us about the world in which they were created, from the Mappa Mundi, through the… more

Timelines can be very useful to family historians when trying to find a simple way to view the chronology of what is often a complicated event more

ChronoZoom Project Big History Big Data

History of the Universe, Earth History and Microsoft backed ChronoZoom intriguing history and IT for historians as good as it currently gets, take a look Videos and links… more

Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land

Roots of our history stems from the ancient Holy lands, the three great world faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, this project maps the history of the Crusades. Mapping history, with great graphical tools this resource has got to be worth a browse. The linkages to later history are very helpful in understanding the context in which life in western Europe develops…

The University of California, interdiscipinary study of art, architecture and archaeology alongside the Geo-Archaeological Informations Applications Lab at Arizona University, have developed an international project to do just that.

They have created a digital atlas that brings together expertise from many disciplines, there are 10,000′s of archaeological sites mapped, photographs and maps, which you can search at will.

The stated intention is that the atlas will ‘harvest, analyse and disseminate settlement pattern and new archaeological data for each key period of cultural change in the region‘. more

New Ancestry Website

New Ancestry Website

Is the New and major Ancestry upgrade more like colourful building blocks we all treasured as kids, or more like a battleship grey but none less popular Aeroplane kit, less creative and more prescriptive? Take a look a this excellent new interface and find out how together we might take a fresh look at our toolkit and resources for family history spurred on by this latest competitive leap by Ancestry.

The English Accent and Family History

The English Accent and Family History

What English accent did your ancestors speak with back in Elizabethan England? You might be surprised to learn that an American reciting Shakespeare is nearer to the mark than you or I.

Scotland’s Valuation Rolls

Scotland’s Valuation Rolls

The 1925 Valuation Rolls for Scotland have just been launched by Scotland’s People and are free to search.

People of Northern England Database

People of Northern England Database

The People of Northern England (PONE) database is not new but not much heard about either. This database is of the people in the Northern counties of Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland from the C13th. It is drawn from two types of material, one financial and one legal. The financial material is drawn from the pipe…

History Pin WWI Hub

Use the History Pin WWI Hub to share your WWI project and let others connect with what you are doing. Your project may be large or small but by sharing it, many more people will be able to make links and connections with you.

Mapping the London Blitz

Mapping the London Blitz

Mapping the London Blitz is a great project which has used the collated and mapped all the census material of all the bombs dropped during the Blitz 1940 – 1941. It is a fascinating resource for family historians with a connection to WWII.

Red Cross POW Records

Red Cross POW Records

The Red Cross POW records are now digitized and available online to search. For many family historians these records complete the story of their ancestors who served in WWI.

New DNA Studies

New DNA Studies

A new study of European DNA has revealed a third population group that make up the DNA of modern Europeans.

WW1 Postcards

WW1 Postcards

WW1 Postcards a rich resource and a visual opportunity, find out how to discover and use the 20K plus postcards on Europeana for the period 1914-1918 and muse over how you might dig-out what ephemera you might have in your loft or research boxes that might help you and others connect and make that next step n researching your project wehther for your family history social, local or special interest project. In the first year of the 100th centenary of WW1 will there ever be such an opportunity to explore and discover what happened and better understand those momentous events?

Operation War Diary

Operation War Diary

Operation War Diary is a crowd sourced project to classify the WWI diaries of the British Army on the Western Front. A project involving the Imperial War Museum and the National Archive.