Jacob Schneider’s Timeline

Last week I wrote about using tax records to fill in the details of Jacob Schneider’s life. I wrote about what I found; now I want to show you how I organized it.

Timelines are an invaluable tool for genealogical research. Not only do they help you organize what you’ve found and see what may be missing, they can also show you inconsistencies and overlaps that can point to potential identification mistakes.

There are three places I have created time-based lists of events: 1) in the miscellaneous notes field in Reunion, 2) Evernote and 3) Google Sheets (spreadsheet). Any one of these—or a combination of them—may work for you.

Reunion is my goto for any information pertaining to an individual; everything I find goes there.

I use Evernote when I want to be more organized and structure my research. I found a template from Colleen Greene that includes sections for biographical information, clues, tasks, and a research log. I added a timeline to the template and use it to keep myself focused during research, to try to adhere to standards.

My Google Sheets timelines I use for collecting data from specific sources. It allows me to compare data—census, tax, etc.—for a specific location or surname through time. I also use it to create compact timelines, a simplified version of my Evernote timelines. These are really helpful when trying to distinguish between multiple individuals with the same name in a given location.

Here is Jacob Schneider’s timeline from my Google spreadsheet.

This spreadsheet only includes records for Jacob Schneider and his presumed family members. I used color to differentiate between people, baby blue being for Jacob himself. Samuel Snyder’s entries are not colored in order to highlight them as I wrote up my proof argument for why I believed him to be Jacob Schneider’s son and Judith Ann Wolf’s husband.

I wouldn’t consider this timeline complete. The tax records need more specific dates and I’m still looking for additional records. For example, Henry received communion at New Goshenhoppen, so he had to have been baptized and confirmed. I’m hoping to find record of that for him and his siblings. Baptism sponsors—especially for the eldest children—can help find additional family members and identify parentage for Jacob and Catharine.

When I examined the records for Conrad and Jacob Nuss in conjunction with this timeline, it became clear that Jacob Schneider was likely working with Jacob Nuss as a saddler. They were both in Upper Hanover Township from 1791 through 1801. Conrad Nuss, Jacob’s presumed father-in-law only overlaps in Upper Hanover with Jacob in 1791 and 1793. Jacob Schneider, like Conrad, is later found in Hereford between 1805 and 1808.

I really like the way a narrative starts to appear when you examine these records. Jacob likely met Catharine while he was apprenticing, learning the saddler trade, and married his boss’s niece! I wouldn’t have thought of this scenario without seeing the occupations in the tax record and the location overlaps in the timeline.

• Category: Research, Resources
• Tag: Family Research, Maternal Line