Perfect Your Genealogy Research Using Genelines Timeline Software

Your genealogy research will benefit greatly from the fresh perspective Genelines™ can bring. These timeline charts conveniently show you where you have duplicate, illogical or contradictory data, or where you have gaps that require further research. And, they help you tell great family stories! Explore the examples here to see how Genelines can help help you.

See video: How Genelines can help with your research

Problem: Missing Birth and Death Dates

Solution: Genelines Family Group Timeline Chart

Genelines helps you to perfect your genealogy research by highlighting missing birth and/or death dates. These estimated dates appear as unfilled sections of a person’s life bar timeline.

In this example, David Moland has both a birth and death date (i.e., a solid life bar), but his mother, Johanna Webber, has no death date. His father’s record, which is totally white, shows there is neither a birth nor death date for him.

By estimating missing birth and death dates, Genelines helps you narrow the time frame for your genealogy research.

Problem: How to Spot Generational Gaps in Data

Solution: Genelines Fan Timeline Chart

Genelines can help focus your genealogy research by highlighting generational skips in your database.

In this example, the fan chart – which is also a timeline – indicates that Susanna Cogswell, mother of Ann White, married Bejamin White, a man older than her father. Is this true, or did the researcher assign the wrong spouse for Susanna? Definitely a point for further investigation.

This or any of the Genelines timeline charts can be saved as a PDF and shared with other researchers eager to solve family mysteries.

Problem: Missing Marriage Date

Solution: Genelines Direct Line Timeline with Events

Genelines timeline software can help focus your genealogy research by highlighting a missing marriage (or other event) date in your family data.

Notice the missing date is not ignored, but instead is estimated by Genelines and identified by a white marriage symbol (). (Specific dates in the database appear in black.)

In this example, it is easy to spot the estimated marriage date for Robert Christopher Corkum and Mary Jane Lynch so that you can add it to your genealogy research list.

Problem: How to Make it Easier for Family Members to Share Information

Solution: Genelines Biographical Timeline Chart

Genelines helps family members share family history by showing them where there are gaps in data. Using the biographical chart, it is easy to prompt others to share data you might be missing.

For instance, in this example, the researcher created a “working” biographical timeline chart to hand out at a family reunion. By including empty life event categories on the chart, there was room to write brief notes about new information gathered at the family gathering. By including historical information that was already present in his database, he was able to prompt others’ memory, and they were able to fill in gaps.

In this case, the researcher also included the event where this chart was handed out in the footer of the chart. (The footer can be edited in all Genelines charts.)

Problem: Where to Look Next

Solution: Genelines Family Group Placed Against a World Events Timeline

Genelines can help you determine where to look next for data by suggesting research sources related to historical events that occurred during an ancestor’s life span.

In this example, for instance, it is very apparent that the subject, his spouse, and all of his children lived during the Acadian Expulsion and Deportation.

Could more clues be found in other regions where Acadians were shipped? Ship records, prisoner’s lists, deportation lists? Searching down this path suggested by the world events timeline may uncover interesting family stories and help create a more complete picture of the family’s life.

Problem: Illogical Data – Wrong Birth Date

Solution: Genelines Pedigree Timeline with Events

Genelines lets you compare life events along with life-span timelines, sometimes revealing illogical data.

In this example, all child “birth event” symbols which indicate birth dates should appear on the mother’s life bar. However, here we see a son (i.e., solid square to the left) was born to Avernia Hatchard before she herself was born!

Obviously, the birth date of either the mother or the son is incorrect. A check of the data shows the person conducting the genealogy research had inadvertently recorded the child born in 1839 instead of 1893.

Problem: Understanding Their Story

Solution: Genelines Comparative Biographical Timelines

Genelines can help you paint a complete personal life story for a family member by showing the timing of personal events against the timeline of their lifespan. Historical events can also be included, which may provide clues about what helped shape that person’s life.

You can choose to show one biographical story at a time, or compare two ancestors. Using the Comparative Biographical Timeline Chart, family trends can become very apparent.

In this example, for instance, it is easy to see the strong similarities between the lives of John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams. Both graduated from Harvard Law at approximately the same age. Both married at around 30 years of age (28 and 30). Both held ministerial appointments in Great Britain and the Netherlands. Both were US Presidents.

But how were they different? What major life events differed for the two? Genelines helps you perfect your genealogy research and tell fascinating stories with real insight.

Problem: How Can I Help People Understand How They Are Related?

Solution: Full Descendant Timeline with Customized Color

Genelines lets you create a color-coded descendant timeline chart, where each descendant branch of the family tree is assigned a different color. This lets you visually show how people are related.

In this example, the researcher, attending a family reunion, printed name tags of the same color to help people see where they fit on the family tree in relation to their cousins. He also displayed a wall chart version prominently for all to see.

The Full Descendant Timeline can also highlight family lines where more information is needed. In this example, there is little information for Sarah, Jonathan and Mary Alden as compared to others. These could be targeted for further research.

Genelines reads the following file formats:

GEDCOM
Family Tree Maker® 2019
Personal Ancestral File™ (PAF)
Ancestral Quest™
Legacy Family Tree™

System Requirements
Trademarks