How to Use Evernote for Genealogy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Organize
Your Research and Boost Your Genealogy Productivity By Kerry Scott., Family Tree
Books, 2015, 239p.
In the introduction to her book, Kerry Scott makes the
rather bold claim that using Evernote to organize your piles of photocopied
documents, bits of information, scans, jottings, charts and photographs will
make your genealogical research much more productive and as a consequence,
change your life. So, let’s start at the beginning. What on earth is Evernote?
The slogan currently shown on the Evernote homepage
(www.evernote.com) is Remember
everything. Modern life can be complicated: simplify it with Evernote, the app
to manage it all. Evernote is a powerful, free software program,
well-suited for genealogical research, that can capture your notes (typed or
handwritten), photographs, audio files, pdfs, web clippings, to-do lists, research/correspondence
logs (and whatever else you’d like to thrown in there) all in one place. It
allows you to store work in “the cloud,” on your computer, or both. This
information can be easily shared with others. As well, you can use the app on
all of your electronic devices.
Scott gives instructions for setting up an Evernote
account and discusses the various membership levels and platforms available. It
is true that the software is free for the basic service, but as often is the
case, there are also added features which come with a fee. Please note that the
prices for the premium services have gone up slightly from the ones quoted in
the book.
The appeal of this book is that the author gears all
of the discussion towards using Evernote specifically for genealogy and how we,
as genealogists, can benefit from it. The book is divided into chapters on how
to use the program for particular tasks. For example, she discusses how to
input and organize your data within Evernote, how to search within the program,
and how to tag various items and use those tags to break down genealogical
brick walls. She also shows the reader how to: share and collaborate within
Evernote, sync data with mobile devices, and protect information. She devotes a
chapter to using Evernote with outside applications such as Penultimate, Skitch, Moleskin Notebooks,
Scannable and Swipes.
There are four appendices included at the back of the
book: an Evernote quick reference guide,
a collection of census extraction templates to use with Evernote, a genealogy
conference planner and a set of research worksheets and templates.
The author has presented a strong case for her assertion
that Evernote can change a genealogist’s life. Scanning and inputting
information into Evernote in the beginning may take some time, but with the
author’s detailed instructions readers will be able to navigate the steps much
more easily. Once the information is in there, Evernote may help to simplify
the organizational process and, as a result, reduce the mountains of paper
notes and documents piled on our desks.
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