Once you lay out a person’s timeline of their life, you will be generating a list of sources of potential records to prove their existence and their presence here on Earth.  It will demonstrate to you where to look for the many records we create as we move through our life.  

For example: records that begin with questions of where and when:

  1. Birth – find this and you can likely locate a birth certificate that will likely list the names of parents and perhaps witnesses who might be relatives or neighbours.
  2. Christening – nail this date and you will find a church record with names of parents, church officials, witnesses, relatives, etc.
  3. Entering school – this will begin a host of educational records that will extend over time as long as the person is in school.
  4. Graduation – identifies the scholastic achievement level.
  5. Military – if your person joined the military, their application records will include physical information as well as well as their service record. It could include medical information as well.
  6. Marriage – these records will show parents, in-laws, likely religion, best friends, etc.
  7. Purchase property – these records will show residency. 
  8. Immigration – if your ancestor immigrated to another country, these records would record who, when, where and maybe some ancestry
  9. Naturalization – ditto
  10. Medical – any diagnosis of health issues
  11. Death – date, location, cause of death, medical official
  12. Interment – location, date, services, marking their departure from our world.

Hence, it you jot down the key dates for a person’s life, these events will point you to the likely officials records for the time on Earth for that person.  Happy searching.

Also, once you have these key dates, you can also reconcile a person’s life with the associated world events of the day.  This could be war, a new president, a new technology discovery, etc.  These events might also have influenced the lives of your ancestors. 

Ron Gilmore

Email:    rvg3@me.com

Website:       https://rgenealogy.ca