Getting Reasons in the Chronology

This is part of a chronology I'm working on for an upcoming issue of Casefile Clues. While sources are a part of any chronology or compiled item, I find it more helpful to include a column in my chronology for a "justification from [the] record."  I cite these records (which hasn't been included here), but find that creating the justification column keeps me on track and reminds me later of not just what document I used, but "what I was thinking" when I entered an event or a date.

Sometimes we can remember the source we used, but our remembering our reasoning is another story.

Date	Event	Justification from Record
3 June 1868 or before	Tonjes Goldenstein born in Germany.	Tonjes’ statement indicated he had arrived at the age of twenty-one years.
3 June 1882 or before	Tonjes Goldenstein arrived in the United States, apparently settling originally in Illinois.	Tonjes’ statement indicated that he had lived in the United States and Illinois for seven years.

Citation reminder: We are a strong believer in citing genealogical source material in the spirit of Evidence Explained. However, we choose not to include properly formatted citations in these blog posts. There's always enough information in the post to create a citation and full citations are included in my how-to newsletter Casefile Clues.