Once upon a time, a history nut compared notes with his dad, a genealogy nut, and realized that their family lines ran straight through some amazing historical events. An insight instantly sprouted: history can tell you things about your ancestors lives that all the personal documents in the world might not tell you. • What was their day-to-day life like? • What did they eat and wear? • What wars, plagues and natural disasters did they endure? • What events unfolded near them that occupied their thoughts and their conversations?
As we began exploring this concept with genealogists, we discovered that there are multiple pain points in the genealogical research and curation process.
- Lack of artifacts and information. Genealogists want to understand the life story of their ancestors, but traditional sources of those insights—artifacts like journals, life sketches, photos and documents—are often elusive or even non-existent, especially the farther back in history the ancestor lived.
- Research process is painful. Historical data is immensely helpful to fill in the blanks, but there's no reliable, centralized source of historical facts for any given place and time. Hence, historical research can be time consuming with spotty results.
- Writing family history is hard. Many genealogists are focused on the research and discovery aspect of genealogy, and struggle to find time to compile all of their research into the biographies of their ancestors. This is the critical last stage of the process that ensures that genealogists’ efforts live on after they’re gone.
To address these challenges, HistoryLines.com was envisioned and built to create an instant biography for any ancestor, accurately placing them in historical context with maps, timelines, photos, and stories. The feature-rich, interactive site creates personal histories that are beautiful, editable and sharable. A pending patent application covers the complex architecture and processes behind the scenes that produce the magic along with some of the unique presentations of the data.
Soon, additional features will come online that will allow users to import their FamilySearch tree or a GEDCOM file, enabling easy access to all their ancestors’ stories. Not only are the stories engaging and interesting, but genealogists are finding that the historical background they discover provides them with new hints as to where they should focus their search for ancestor-specific records.
The HistoryLines database contains stories, descriptions, photos, and events for the United States, the British Isles, and Ireland back to 1600. Over time, the data will continue to expand to more locations, and deepen within the existing locations. For example, data for Germany and Denmark is currently in development. A robust, user-driven roadmap of features and data promises to expand HistoryLines.com into an immensely powerful genealogy and educational resource.
The rich, simplicity of the HistoryLines experience has the potential to transform the genealogy industry by serving the existing legions of genealogists in new ways, and by expanding the appeal of the industry to a younger audience.
HistoryLines.com is currently in closed beta, with hundreds of beta testers on the site and hundreds more awaiting access.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.