Family Timeline Sheet

Who this is for

The family's events in date order. Each line holds the date, what happened, who it happened to, where, and the source it came from, with a column you fill with whatever was going on in the wider world at the time.

Family historians who have facts scattered across group sheets, certificates and notes and want to see them in order, and anyone writing the family's story who needs to know what came before what.

What this helps you track

• Every dated event for a family or a line, in the order it happened
• Who each event belongs to and where it took place
• The source each line rests on, so the timeline can be checked
• The wider events you choose to set beside the family's, in your own words
• The gaps — the decades with no line — which are where the next search goes

How to use it

1. Name the family or line at the top and say who compiled the sheet and when.
2. Go through what you already have — group sheets, certificates, census extractions, interview notes — and write one line per dated event.
3. Give every line a source. A line without one is a story, and the column makes the difference visible.
4. The world events column is yours to fill: wars, moves, epidemics, changes in the local industry — whatever you know or find about the place and period. The sheet supplies nothing.
5. Look at the gaps. A long stretch with no line is either a quiet decade or a missing record, and either way it goes on the research log.
6. Add lines as facts arrive; in the browser version rows can be inserted and the sheet saved in your own browser, and on paper a second page carries on.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Do events go in as I find them, or in order?

In order, if you can; a timeline out of sequence is hard to read. In the browser version you can add rows between existing ones. On paper, leave a few spare lines between decades or rewrite the sheet when it gets untidy.

What counts as an event?

Anything with a date and a person: a birth, a marriage, a move, a census entry, a job, a voyage, a death, a photograph. Small events with sources are more useful than large ones without.

Why is there no world history on the sheet?

Because the sheet does not know where your family lived or when, and a printed list of dates for one country would be wrong for another. The column is there for what you find relevant.

Can it cover more than one family?

It can, using the who column to keep the lines apart, though one sheet per line is easier to read. Use the family group sheet for the members of one family and this for the sequence of what happened to them.