HistoryLines Offical Launch and Special Offer

Back at RootsTech 2015, I met and talked to the folks at HistoryLines.com. In a Press Release dated January 13, 2015, they announced the following:

 OSWEGO, Ill.—(PR Web)—Jan. 13, 2015—HistoryLines, a leading provider of historical solutions for genealogists and educators, today announced the official launch of historylines.com, a new website for users interested in genealogy and family history. The site allows anyone to better understand the lives of their forebears by describing the historical events and cultural influences that surrounded their lives. Users see their relatives in historical context with a personalized timeline and map, and can read a detailed, editable life sketch based on when and where their ancestor lived in history.  

“After several months of large-scale beta testing, we’re very excited to be able to offer the HistoryLines experience to the world,” says Jeff Haddon, HistoryLines co-founder. “HistoryLines addresses two major pain points in the genealogy research process: the scarcity of personal details that tell an ancestor’s life story, and the time it takes to compose a life sketch from research results.” According to Haddon, HistoryLines hopes to dramatically simplify that process for genealogists and family historians. 

The Special Offer is outlined as follows:

 “Anyone interested in giving HistoryLines a try can create their first two stories for free to explore all the features,” says Haddon. HistoryLines offers subscriptions at $9.99 per month or $59.00 per year. To encourage new users to try out the site, the company is offering 30% off new subscriptions forever with the promo code EARLYBIRD30. As long as the promotional subscriptions don’t lapse, the discount will continue indefinitely. The introductory offer is good through April 30, 2015. 

 From their product description,

HistoryLines.com provides an automatic, editable life sketch for your ancestors based on when and where they lived. What did your ancestors experience? What were their daily lives really like? Don’t have the elusive records that tell their personal story? HistoryLines can help!  

With a huge and growing database of historical events and descriptions, HistoryLines offers interactive timelines, maps, and narratives to help you learn more about your ancestors that mere names and dates. As you explore the events and cultural influences that impacted their daily lives, your ancestors will come to life in a way you’ve never experienced before.  

As of April 2015, HistoryLines provides historical insights back to 1600 A.D. for the following countries: United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, German and Denmark. Additional countries and centuries are in development, with Canada, France, Poland, Sweden and Finland coming soon.  

HistoryLines is available online at https://historylines.com

The program allows you to import a family tree from FamilySearch.org or upload a GEDCOM file. Here is a screenshot of my Grandfather and the timeline and story created by the program.

 The narrative from the timeline created is quite extensive. As long as researchers realize that the events outlined could have affected the ancestor and may suggest additional places to do research, I am impressed with the detail and the connections listed.