Lecture given 10 July 2021 for the New Mexico Genealogical Society's "Monthly Talks" series

1. Evernote for
Genealogists
Jordan Jones
NMGS Monthly Talks
10 July 2021

3. What is Evernote?
• A ”freemium” note-taking organization and storage
tool
• A tool to organize, store, archive, and find your data
• A tool to search text (including handwriting) in
images (using Optical Character Recognition, OCR)
• A tool to search inside PDFs and Office Docs
(including OCR) (Paid)
• The leading digital memory application (MS OneNote,
Google Keep being key competitors)

5. Key Evernote Features
• Capture Everything—Text notes, web pages, audio,
photos, any kind of digital file.
• Keep Everything in Sync—notes, web clips, files and
images are available on two devices (free) or unlimited
devices (paid).
• Research—Collect information from anywhere into a
single place. Everything is always at your fingertips.
• Remember Everything—Since it is easy to capture &
find.

6. Organization and Search
Evernote makes it easy to organize and find your data by:
• search, or
• navigation

7. Search — Basic (Free)
• You can search for any text
• in the note itself
• in images
• in tags, titles, or notebook names

8. Search — (Paid)
• Search within documents
• PDFs
• Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)

9. Getting Started
Creating an Account and Installing Evernote

10. Signing Up for Evernote –
Website

11. Signing Up for Evernote

12. Installing Evernote: Desktop

13. Installing Evernote: Mobile
• Standard Installation, just like any other App Store, or
Google Play application.
• Search for “Evernote” in your mobile store of choice.

14. Installing Evernote Web Clippers
To get the best of Evernote for web capture, you should
install browser plug-ins for your favorite browser(s).
• Go to https://evernote.com/webclipper/. The website
will automatically detect your browser and provide the
relevant web clipper.
• Follow the instructions on the page.

16. Web Clipper

17. Web Clipped Note

18. Why Should
Genealogists Use
Evernote?
Concepts & Strategies for
Digital Memory

19. Why Should Genealogists Use
Evernote?
• To create research plans
• To create research logs
• To gather and catalog digital assets
• To write — notes, draft proof summaries, family narratives
• To store more formal documents—Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
any format file you use
• To share the results of research

20. Evernote User
Interface Orientation
Quick Overview

21. The Evernote Web Interface
1. New Note
2. Shortcuts
3. All Notes
4. Notebooks
5. Tags

22. Navigation
• New
• Home
• Shortcuts
• Notes
• Tasks
• Notebooks
• Tags

23. The Evernote Desktop Interface
1. Home
2. Shortcuts
3. Notes
4. Tasks
5. Notebooks
6. Tags
1
2
3
4
5
6

24. 1
2
3
4

25. Card View

26. Parts of a Note

27. Organization for
Search

28. Organization Methods:
Understanding Tags & Notebooks
• A notebook is like a folder on your computer.
• A note can be in only one notebook.
• Tags may be applied to each note.
• A note can have many tags.

29. Changing an Attachment to an Image

30. Now with the Image

31. Organization Methods
The dominant methods of organization for Evernote users are
• Tag-Oriented (with some use of notebooks)
• Notebook-Oriented (with some use of tags)
• Tags Only or Notebooks Only
• Disorganized: Only one notebook, and no tags
I prefer to use a tag-oriented method, so I can use both tags and
notebooks.

32. My Recommended Method
• Notebooks
• Record Type
• Tags
• Record Type
• Surname
• Individual Name
• Location (Nation, State,
County)

33. Notebooks
• Notebooks can be organized in stacks
• A top-level notebook, containing
• Many other notebooks.
• Notebooks can be nested only two deep (parent / child).
• An account can contain 250 notebooks (free) or 1,000 (paid)

36. Notebook Organization

37. Tag Basics
• Applied outside any files or note text, tags provide an
external organizing principle.
• You can search for tags directly or indirectly:
• “tag:Jones” finds all notes tagged “Jones”
• “Jones” finds all notes that have the text Jones
anywhere, either inside the note, in an image, or in a
tag

38. Understanding Tags
You can search for text anywhere in a note, but:
• Tags provide a more exact search.
• There’s no reason not to use a lot of tags.
• You can search for any tag using the syntax
“tag:[tag name]”

39. Understanding Tags
• Tags can be organized into hierarchies, which aids in
tag management
• Tag hierarchies do not “auto-tag” notes

40. A Tag Hierarchy
• Genealogy
• Surname
• [Various Surnames]

41. The Tag Organizer

42. Record Type Tags
Record Types
• Cemetery
• Court
• Criminal
• DNA
• Immigration

43. Surname Tags
Surname
• Adkins
• Ahlm
• Arnold
• Atkins

44. Individuals Tags
Inside the tag hierarchy, Genealogy > Indi
viduals, I have a list of people I’m research
ing
• Albert M. Hinman
• Alfred Leslie Hill
• Alice Golden Scott
• Alice Jane Horner
• Alice Margaret Gregg

45. Locales Tags
• Locales
• AL
• AZ
• Maricopa Co. AZ
• Bosnia-Hercegovina
• CA
• Alameda Co. CA
• Fresno Co. CA
• Kings Co. CA
• Long Beach Co. CA

46. Search

47. Search Shortcuts
Cmd-F / Ctrl-F Search within the current note
Cmd-J / Ctrl-Q Jump to a Notebook, Tag, or
Note
Ctrl-Cmd-E / Win-Shift-F Open up the search bar
(even when Evernote is
minimized)

48. Jump
Cmd-J (Mac) or Ctrl-Q (Windows)

49. Search Syntax: Keywords
Evernote search syntax mainly consists of a keyword (intitle, tag,
notebook, resource) followed by a colon followed by the search term.
tag:B-M-D Finds notes tagged ”B-M-D”
intitle:”Ahlm, Nels” Finds notes with “Ahlm, Nels” in the title
notebook:”gen – census” Finds notes in the ”Gen - Census”
notebook
resource:image/png Finds notes that contain PNG images

50. Search Syntax:
Minus Sign / Asterisk
You can use a minus sign to exclude content; you can use
an asterisk as a wildcard
-tag:census Excludes notes with the tag ”census”
intitle:jon* Finds notes with Jon, Jones,
Jonathan.
Helpful for variant spelling
resource:image/* Finds notes with image files

51. Using Search Terms Together
Search terms can be used together, such as
intitle:Via -tag:census
This would find all notes with the ”Via” in the title that are
not tagged “census”

52. A Workflow for
Research
Putting it All Together

53. 1. Research Plan
Create research plan notes (what are you trying to find, confirm, or rule
out).
I list as much information as necessary, including links to other research
notes, or record notes, and information about the repository. If there in an
online search tool for a repository, I might look up and note microfilm
numbers.
I store this plan note in a notebook I call “0 - Research Plans.” I tag the
note with the repository or database where I will be conducting the search,
as well as surnames, personal names, and record types that may help me
find the note later.

54. 2. Update Research Plan
I update the research plan as I am conducting the
search, noting anything about the research itself.
This will become my research log.
If you want to keep a record of your plan separate from your
research log, start from a copy of the plan note and create a
log note.

55. 3. Create Record Notes
If I discover a record that relates to this research, I save it
as a record note in Evernote.
I write the citation immediately, then create Evernote links
between the research note and the record note. (For an
example of this, see: Research - Borica Likic - Birth
Certificate.)

59. 4. Tag Record Notes
I tag the record note as appropriate with:
• surname
• individual name
• historical location
• record type

60. 5. Title Record Notes
Then title the note with the format
• “date - person - record type - place - identifier”
such as
• “1968-02-05 - Hill, Mary Jane - Death Certificate -
Nebraska - 69-02358”
I file the record note into a notebook for the record type.

62. 6. File Research Plan with
Research Logs
• I make any final notes on the research note, then
move it from the “0 - Research Plans” to the “1 -
Research Log” notebook.
• I do this even if I have a negative search, to remind
myself that I did conduct such a search, and the
circumstances of the search.

63. Templates
Why Type It All Again?

64. Templates (Paid)
• Evernote has been late to this game.
• Early this year, they introduced a way to create and use
templates, which requires one of the paid accounts.

65. Templates (Paid)

66. Templates (Paid)

67. Templates (Paid)

68. Templates (Paid)

69. Templates (Paid)

70. Templates (Paid)
• The template doesn’t come in with a title
• To create standard titles, I type guidelines for titles into
the template

71. Templates (Paid)

72. Templates (Free)
• I have a workaround:
• I create templates for vital records, census records, and
other record types, then
• I use the Context Menu > Copy to Notebook command.

75. Learn More at Evernote
https://help.evernote.com/

76. Thank You