Thursday, February 2, 2017

Create Timelines for your Ancestors Life

I have been looking for a way to show my ancestors history in a visual way. I wanted something that would be interesting to my family, so it had to be more than just dates and places. I decided that I wanted to create a timeline of the events in my ancestors life. These events would include historical events as well as personal events in their lives. This timeline needed to be more than just words - pictures needed to be added to enrich their time looking at that ancestor. I went looking for something that was free, and could easily be added to my website which I have already created for my ancestors.   

The search was on - I started looking at the different options out there for timelines. Many programs have free versions, but there were too many restrictions for what I wanted to accomplish. You can only put in so many dates or pictures before you have to start paying. I finally came across a website called TimelineJS created by the Northwestern University Knight Lab. This website walked me through the entire process of how to create this timeline. It uses google sheets where you replace their information with your own. You can add as many events as you like and you can add pictures, youtube videos, twitter posts, maps, Wikipedia articles, documents, and sounds and more to make your timeline interactive for people. I was also able to embed this timeline onto my website for my family to enjoy.

I loved how the timeline looked and presented the information I had entered. Check out their website for more information.

Here is a small timeline that I created to see if you might like to try out this program. Enjoy!

 

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