Make a timeline website from dated events you can keep adding to
A good timeline is an edited story, not a list of every date you can find. Pick the moments that changed something, give each a date, a short title, two or three sentences and ideally a picture, and lay them out vertically so they read on a phone. Store the events as entries with a date field so adding next year's milestone takes a minute.
Choosing what goes on the line
The hardest part of any history timeline website is leaving things out. Twenty well-chosen events hold attention; eighty become a scroll nobody finishes. A useful test for each entry: did something change afterwards? A founding, a move, a first customer, a merger, a product that took off, a wedding, a birth, a war that scattered a family. Anniversaries and awards rarely pass that test on their own.
- Company history
- Founding, first premises, the turning-point products, moves, changes of ownership, the people who shaped it. A company history timeline page works best when it ends with where the business is now, not ten years ago.
- Family story
- Births, marriages, migrations, homes, occupations. Note where a date is uncertain ("about 1890") rather than inventing precision.
- Project or campaign
- Milestones, decisions, setbacks and what was learned. Useful for a research group, a restoration or a community campaign.
- Place or building
- Construction, changes of use, notable events, restoration. Pair each with a photograph from the period if you have the rights.
Writing a single entry
Every entry needs the same parts, in the same order, so readers can scan. Lead with the date in a consistent format, then a title that says what happened ("Moved to the mill on Canal Street"), then two or three sentences on why it mattered. Keep the voice consistent; a timeline written by five people in five styles feels like five timelines.
- Date: year, or month and year. Pick one precision for the whole line where you can.
- Title: under ten words, active.
- Body: two or three sentences, no more.
- Image: optional, with alt text that describes what's shown, not just "photo from 1962".
- Source or note: for history pages, where the fact comes from. Readers who care about history care about this.
Layout that works on a phone
Horizontal timelines look striking on a wide screen and fall apart on a phone, where they become tiny cards you swipe sideways through. A vertical line, newest or oldest first, reads naturally on every screen. If the history spans long periods, group entries under decade or era headings so readers can skip to the part they care about. Put a short introduction above the line saying what it covers and what it leaves out.
Building it in Anticode
Keep the events in a CMS collection with typed fields: date, title, body, image and source. You edit entries in the dashboard, and the collection is served at its own address, for example /history/ for the whole line and /history/canal-street-mill for an entry that needs a longer write-up. When something new happens, add one entry rather than redesigning a page.
Describe the timeline when you start: "a company history timeline for a family bakery founded in 1952, vertical, grouped by decade, with photos from our archive". Keep the milestones in a CMS collection whose image field holds each archive photo's hosted address, so they show in that collection's section and pages; uploads are used only if you ask for an app build. Editorial (Geist) suits a long read; Organic (Figtree) suits a warmer family story. The design engine's pages carry no scripts, so a vertical timeline built this way loads quickly and works without anything to run.
An interactive timeline website
If you want something visitors can scrub through, filter by theme or zoom between centuries, ask for it to be built as an app instead. Apps are written as one HTML document with their own JavaScript, and can read the project's CMS collections read-only, so the events you edit in the dashboard still feed it. Apps run in a sandbox with no network, so the timeline can't pull dates or images from other sites. Weigh the extra motion against readability: a plain vertical list is often the clearer choice.
What it doesn't do
- No embedded videos or maps. Published pages can't embed YouTube or map widgets; link out to them from an entry.
- No import from genealogy or spreadsheet tools. Entries are added in the dashboard.
- No contributions from visitors. Relatives or former staff can send memories through a contact form, and you add the ones you want.
- No private family pages. Everything published is public, so leave out living people's details that shouldn't be online; the family tree website page goes into this.
Questions people ask
Should a timeline run oldest first or newest first?
Oldest first for a history that builds to the present; newest first for a project log where readers want the latest news. Say which near the top.
How many events should a timeline have?
As few as tell the story. Fifteen to thirty suits most company and family histories; put the rest in longer entry pages.
Can I add old photographs?
Yes, upload them to the build. Make sure you have the right to publish each one, and credit archives where they ask you to.