I hated this book at first glance. The design is unattractive and the obvious errors in punctuation, spelling, and grammar forced me to pull out my red pencil. I was further irritated that Jacobson makes broad generalizations and states facts without documentation. But the worst was her claim that Henry VII (not VIII) broke from the Catholic Church and founded the Church of England. The inclusion of time lines in the middle of narrative was jarring as well. But I continued reading and soon found myself saying things like, "I did not know that" and "Wow!" So even though this book is a bit pricey, and a bit messy, I found it to be a worthwhile read.

Jacobson's basic premise is that historical context is needed to make genealogical work rich and meaningful. One tool for making this happen is the historical time line. She begins her book by discussing the value of a time line. Chapter two instructs readers in the methodology of constructing one's own time line, making it very useful. Two websites are recommended for automatically generating a time line: www.readwritethink.org and www.ourtimelines.com. I looked at both and while ReadWriteThink has a good tool (search for Time Line Tool), you cannot save your time line, only print it. The better choice is OurTimelines since you merely put in your ancestor's name, birth year, and death year. Then the program automatically generates a time line with historical data. You can add personal events to the time line to personalize it and accurately reflect your ancestor's life. There is also a tool called Peers and Contemporaries to see what famous people were born in the same year as your ancestor. I put in my grandmother's birth year and found out that Donna Reed, Nancy Reagan, Alex Haley, Deborah Kerr, and Gene Roddenberry are just a few of her contemporaries (all born in 1921).

The next few chapters focus mainly on American immigrants and their ancestors and answers questions such as, "Why did they leave?", "How did they go?", and "Who went where?" Jacobson examines topics like wars, racism, religion, and disasters that motivated immigration. Her time line on religion looks at major religious events from 1306-1920 in countries including France, Portugal, Iceland, England, Poland, Turkey, China, and Japan. The disease time line only focuses on the American Republic from 1657-1931. Chapter 4 looks at transportation and how it aided or impeded migration. While it is only a few pages long, it invites readers to consider how our ancestors traveled, whether by water, road, rail, or air. Chapter 5 continues this discussion by showing what groups settled in what locations, all easily conveyed in tables. For example, in 1870 the Irish predominately settled in Boston, New York, Jersey City, and Albany, while Germans settled Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Buffalo. Another interesting point in this section is the varied roads that migrants took to get from one locale to another. For example, most of us know that the Oregon and California Trails began in Independence, Missouri, but there was also a Santa Fe Trail that began there, too.

Chapter 6 is a short one about "Myths, Confusions, Secrets, and Lies" and focuses on popular myths and puzzles in genealogy. For instance, Jacobson says most families have a myth of two immigrant brothers who came to America together. Another common story is of the family being descended from Charlemagne through an illegitimate ancestor. Yet another popular claim families make is that they have Native American or royal ancestry. She cautions readers to be skeptic of such claims because they may hide a more embarrassing but banal family secret.

Chapter 7 is one of the most illuminating in the book--its focus is specifically on missing family members. She provides clues for finding ancestors who were slaves, Native Americans, orphans, or who lived in localities that no longer exist (such as the lost states of Franklin, Transylvania, and Westmoreland). This chapter would be especially useful for those researchers who have hit a dead end and need an idea to further their research. For example, she provides a table showing different localities in Europe and Africa where African slaves were imported from, and then connects them to locations in the USA. So if your slave ancestor lived in Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Virginia, she or he may have originated in Jamaica, Senegal, or Gambia (p. 101). Or if you are a Nanticoke, your ancestors were likely Moorish pirates who intermarried with Native American, English, or Moorish peoples in present-day Delaware (p. 111-112).

Chapter 8 looks at the social histories of groups such as clubs, fraternities, and labor unions. She also uses this chapter to discuss the value of family diaries, local histories, and family history projects. And while this information may be useful, it is something that could be found in numerous other sources.

The final chapter is perhaps the third best in the book because it provides timelines for each state up until the mid-nineteenth century. If you need quick facts about a state, such as Hawaii, then you can quickly find when the monarchy was overthrown by American businessmen (1893). Or if you want to see what was happening in the rest of the world at a certain time, she has time lines for each region up until the 1950s.

In conclusion, this book is a useful tool in genealogical research, especially for the beginning researcher. Her primary focus is on European immigration to the United States, but she does write quite a bit about Africans, African Americans, and Chinese peoples. However, she scarcely mentions Spanish or Mexican contributions to the USA. This is an obvious weakness since the Spanish first colonized near Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1598 and the English did not make their first permanent settlement at Jamestown, Virginia until 1607.

Short anecdotes illustrate Jacobson's points and make " History for Genealogists: Using Chronological Time Lines to Find and Understand Your Ancestor" more interesting to read. A comprehensive Bibliography and Index also make the book easy to search, as does the detailed Table of Contents.

Paperback: 296 pages; Online Price: $28.18 on Amazon
Article written by Larisa S. Asaeli