postgresql history and timelines

Hi guys,
Wanted to understand something that isnt clear to me, please correct me if
I'm wrong :

-When we want to recover our database or promote a secondary to be a master
a new time line will be created. A new file will be created in the pg_xlog
directory named '00000TIMELINEID.history'.
-During the daily work, the primary or the secondary shouldnt have a
.history file right ?
-The history file contains only the timeline id and the location to start
from the timeline.
-When using repmgr, after cloning the primary and starting the secondary
the secondary should replay wals from :
1.archives
2.local wals
3.Streaming replication from primary
?

I cloned the primary to the secondary, and when I tried to start the
secondary I got the next message :
LOG: restored log file "000000010000090A00000002" from archive
FATAL: requested timeline 2 is not a child of this server's history
DETAIL: Latest checkpoint is at xx on timeline 1, but in the history of
the requested timeline, the server forked off from that timeline at YY.

So I didnt recover my primary or promoted a secondary so how is it possible
that I have a file from timeline 2 ? Are there other operations that
creates a new timeline ?

Thanks.