Resurrecting the Dead Part One: Start with a Timeline

If you have read any of my earlier blog posts, like Trees into Stories, you may know I favor ancestor stories over adding more to the tree. So in that spirit I want to talk about playing God as a family historian. We literally get to recreate the life of an ancestor who for all intents, is lost. Yes, they may appear on hundreds, if not thousands of trees—but few give much detail into their lives. In my post My Woman Warrior I chose to resurrect my second great grandmother. For this post I am reaching further back to my fourth great grandfather Peter P HALL. Note most trees have him as Peter HALL of Peter H Hall but in thoroughly examining the records I find that he is Peter P. HALL. He was the Revolutionary War soldier and I wrote about him in Revolutionary War Details in Ancestor’s Pension Files. I decided to see what else I could discover about Peter’s life and it turns out I like to start by building a timeline. Then adding entries bit buy bit.

The easiest way to begin is to print out a Timeline from Ancestry, Family Search, My Heritage or Family Tree Maker (or similar program) and then use that to create table. This is your basic chronology of the life of your ancestor. You want to look carefully at the deaths of parents, children and siblings. In the case of Peter HALL his older brother Joel Hall died in battle after June 1776 somewhere near New York city. Three other brothers and his father also served in the Revolution but none for as many enlistments as Peter. You also may want to look into the family members of your subject’s spouse.

A gem of a Revolutionary War Roll tells that Peter HALL served under Colonel Ira ALLEN; Capt John STARK’s Company 1 April 1780 for 7 days at Skeensborough and Ticoderoga and who does he serve with? His future wife Mandana’s brother Elisha CLARK Jr. This matters because the following year Peter and Mandana marry 4 Oct 1781 at Pawlet, Vermont and the same day he is listed in Captain Zadock EVEREST’s company under Colonel Ira ALLEN. That same company in 1 May 1782 of the 30 men, three are Mandana CLARK’s brothers: Lemuel, Elihu and Smith CLARK as well as her nephew Ozias CLARK (son of previously mentioned brother Elisha CLARK). So paying attention to family members matters.

So you assemble the facts that you have in chronological order and then go looking for more. Among the records in this time frame:

• Church Records
• Vital Records (recorded by town in new England)
• Military Records
• Military unit histories
• Newspaper articles
• State Archives
• Land Records (recorded by town in new England)
• Maps
• Etchings or drawings of places
• National Archives
• Town or County Histories

Once you have collected as much as you can find, place these into your table or spreadsheet. But you aren’t done yet. Then you need to add contextual information.

• Historic facts for the time frame and places your ancestor lived
• Old Newspapers are great for giving you a feel for what was happening
• If your ancestor served in a war look for articles about commanding officers

You should end up with something like this (partial):

Once you have this assembled a timeline and the accompanying documents that helped to you to build it. It’s time to move to the next step which is bringing your ancestor to life.

I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.

George Washington

Kelly Wheaton ©2023 – All Rights Reserved