Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Evernote Notebooks = Your Filing System

[ATTN:  This article was originally published on 5 May 2014. It has now been moved here from the old blog host and it will require updating soon.]

Create Evernote notebooks that mimic your personal filing system. Assuming you already have a filing system or have an idea of what you would like your filing system to be. If you don't you might do what I do and file by surname. There are many ways you can file and the method you use should be whatever works best for you and how you think. For more ideas see: http://www.CyndisList.com/organizing/ 

TIP:  Pick one system that works for you. Then duplicate that across all of your research areas: paper files, paper notebooks, computer files, cloud files, research notebooks, bookmarks for research, e-mail, etc. If you use the same filing system in each function you will have an easier time finding what you need. 

You can have up to 250 notebooks within Evernote. Notebooks can be stacked one level deep under a top level. So, my personal set-up has a stack for Genealogy Research and under that I have one notebook for each surname I work on and one notebook for some of those localities in which I am doing a lot of research on several families. 

I have stacks for my other genealogy activities: Genealogy Business, Genealogy Conferences & Travel, Genealogy Education - Me, Genealogy Lectures & Speaking, Genealogy Research - Others, Genealogy Volunteer Stuff. I also have stacks and notebooks for non-genealogy stuff (when do I have time?) including Cyndi, Evan (my son), Mom (mine), Household, Recipes, Receipts, etc.

The screenshots below show my stacks and notebooks. The screenshot on the right shows all of the notebooks currently under the Genealogy Research stack.

      







Evernote for Every Genealogist
Copyright © 2014 Cyndi Ingle. All Rights Reserved.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the information and examples.
Zotero is a similar program, designed for researchers.
I am interested in using it for genealogy information since we use it for historical research and writing,
and
so far found this discussion, which raises more questions but it's a start for me

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7940/genealogy-elizabeth-shown-mills-styles/

Unknown said...

Thanks for the information and examples.
Zotero is a similar program, designed for researchers.
I am interested in using it for genealogy information since we use it for historical research and writing,
and
so far found this discussion, which raises more questions but it's a start for me

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/7940/genealogy-elizabeth-shown-mills-styles/