How I Use Evernote for My Genealogy.

NOTE: 2 Feb 2014 -- Link updated to shared notebook

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Today I did a Google+ hangout on air about Evernote for Genealogy.   Once I watched the video I saw that I was not a very good cameraman!

Hopefully this will clear up any questions you may have.

How I use Evernote for my genealogy.

I use Evernote to store everything including my genealogy research.

You want to use Evernote in a way that makes sense to you.  Tags, notebooks, no tags or no notebooks; do whatever works the best for you.

Notebooks (the blue box)

Notebooks are sorted alphabetically so if there are notebooks you want at the top of your list you can use ! or @ or ~ in front of your notebook title.  In my image, for example, I have my INBOX notebook with an ! in front to keep this notebook at the top of the list.  I use a ~ to keep my GENEALOGY notebook stacks together.  I have an ARCHIVE notebook and in front of that I put an x to keep it at the bottom of my list.

Tags (the orange box)

Tags also sort alphabetically and the same characters can be used in front of your tag names.

Shortcuts (the green box)

I use shortcuts to hold notebooks and tags that I use the most often.  In Evernote 5 (beta) you click on a notebook or tag and drag it to the Shortcuts section to save your shortcut.

My Notebook Stacks (the blue box)

!INBOX -- This is my default notebook.  Anything that gets clipped with the webclipper or that is automatically put into Evernote goes here for processing.  I go through this notebook daily to process what is in there.

!TO DO -- This is where my research log, my historical society to do list, database maintenance list, my Shannon Thomas Photography to do list, and my household bill lists reside.

~GENEALOG~ -- There are two notebooks in this stack and they are DOCUMENTS and RESEARCH PLANS.

~GENEALOGY RESOURCES~ -- This notebook stack is broken down in to books, CCH&GS, legacy, maps, places, and resources.

~GENEALOGY TRAILS~ -- This is a volunteer genealogy group that I belong to and I am the county host for Columbia and Montour counties in Pennsylvania.  Each county has its own notebook in this stack and everything pertaining to these two counties goes in their notebooks.

CRAFTS, FOOD, PHOTOGRAPHY -- These are more notebooks stacks pertaining to different aspects of my life.

SHARED -- This notebook stack is where my shared genealogy notebook is and some other shared notebooks that I belong to.

TEMPLATE -- This notebook houses all of my Evernote templates and I have either made or downloaded from the web.  I copy these notes to whatever notebook they go in when I need to use them.

xARCHIVEx -- This notebook stack holds notes that I am not presently using but may need to refer to at some point.

My Tags (the orange box)

Every note that I place in Evernote gets a tag; usually multiple tags.  Evernote has a great searching feature and it can find what you are looking for with no problems.  (Searching is a whole blog post on its own).  As long as my notes have tags I can find them no matter what notebook they are in.

In my shared Evernote notebook there is a blank research log, an example of a research log, a bland research plan and an example of a research plan.  Feel free to use these and adapt them to fit your needs.  You can find them at Evernote in my shared Genealogy notebook.

If there are any more questions please post them here and I will do what I can to help you find your way through Evernote.