In Search of the Schulte Line . . . Time Line, That Is . . .

I was looking for a way to embed a timeline in my blog, and I found TimeRime. Since I've been working on the Schulte line, I entered some relevant Schulte dates and uploaded a few pictures and documents to give the software a test run. The timeline above is the result.

Free is a very good price, and you can create as many timelines as you want. You can even invite someone else to collaborate with you. When the timeline is embedded, it updates automatically if you enter more data.

You can get very specific about the date and time of an event, right down to the hour, minute, and second. For some events, that could be very useful. I'm not particularly happy with the way dates are displayed, though--I would like a three-letter month for the sake of clarity. This software displays the month using numerals, leaving a date like 3-5-1921 open to two interpretations. The viewer is forced to find other dates to see what the format is. If you were looking at it, would you assume the month is first or second in this example? I'm betting most U.S. viewers would be wrong.

Data entry is fairly (not overly) user-friendly. In addition to the information that pops up when a viewer mouses over an event in the timeline, you can also add text, images, and video. You can add a photo gallery to an event. I'll have to play with the embedded timeline a bit after it's posted, but it appears that the extra text and pictures will not appear where the timeline is embedded. Clicking on an event that has such extras takes the viewer to the TimeRime website to view it there.

I'm not sure how the software determines which events are displayed in dark print and which are in light gray. All events were entered in the same manner and left at the default priority setting. Priority settings can be changed later (there are four levels of priority).

I was a little confused at one point to find one of my events out of sequence by about a hundred years, even though the date I entered was correct.

I didn't see any way to alter the color scheme, which would be a nice option.

I haven't decided whether I'll add more events to this timeline. At this point, I invite you to have a look, try out the navigation tools, and let me know what you think as a viewer. Does it seem easy to use? Are you able to figure out how to view the documents and pictures? Does it add confusion or clarity to the Schulte family history?