I started using Evernote about 18 months ago (you can read my original post on the subject here) and I wanted to revisit the topic with some tips and tricks that I’ve picked up along the way, as well as highlight some new features.

Evernote really has become more and more useful over the last 18 months, as the company has added new features, acquired companies, and as third parties have built apps to work with Evernote.  Some of the features I’m finding most useful are:

Notebook Stacks

Stacks are a way to organize notebooks into groups.  If you are a OneNote user, Evernote stacks are akin to a OneNote notebook with Evernote notebooks like OneNote pages.  Each notebook can have as many pages (like OneNote subpages) as you want.  Stacks provide an added level of organization.  For example, I have a “Genealogy” notebook stack that currently contains five notebooks:

• Genealogy – General:  this is for stuff that is related to Genealogy, but doesn’t fit it into any other notebook.
• Langston Research – this is a research project
• Patterson-Chapman notes – another research project
• Stroud-Curtis notes – another research project
• US-REC Study group – everything related to – you guessed it – the US Records Study Group of which I’m a participant and co-leader.

Note Links

You can imbed links from any Evernote note into any other note (and into outside apps, like calendars, I understand).  One way that I use this is when prepping assignments for US-REC Study Group.  As I find things related to a topic, I can clip them into Evernote.  I also have one master note for the assignment and include links to all other notes – sort of like an interactive outline.

This screen shot shows the master note with links back to individual web clips.

To-Dos

Evernote has had checkboxes that let you make to-do lists for quite awhile.  But I’ve recently learned that you can add a checkbox to anything in any note (as opposed to creating a separate to-do list).  Using a search on todo:false brings back all the blank checkboxes.  So, for example, if I found a webinar that I want to attend, I can clip the the webpage (or a portion of the page) and add a checkbox to that note, with a line to register for the webinar and the date.

Evernote Clearly

Evernote Clearly is a browser add-in that lets you strip out all the “clutter” on web pages:  headers, sidebars, etc.  While this makes for a simpler reading experience, I really like it for clipping web pages.  In addition to the Clearly icon, you get a little sidebar with the Evernote elephant icon.  Clicking the elephant clips the web page from Clearly without all the extra information, that you don’t necessarily want in a web clip.

Emailing into Evernote

There are a couple of tricks I’ve learned that make emailing into Evernote more efficent.  Add @notebookname and/or #tagname into the email subject line and the email is automatically filed where you want it to go.  This means you don’t have to deal with it again when you go into Evernote.  I can use this to forward emails I’ve received or to email new files or web clips into Evernote, if I don’t have access to Evernote at the time.

An example of how I regularly use this is with email newsletters.  I keep a notebook with the newsletter name and automatically forward the newsletter into Evernote with @NewsletterName.  Then, I have access to the newsletter to read at lunch or when waiting, etc.

These are some of the ways that Evernote assists me with my genealogy research.  What are some of your top tips for using Evernote?

We’re talking about computers & technology in US-REC Study Group.  We have chapters to read in Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy and in The Source, but honestly, I learn more tech tips from my genea-friends than books could ever cover.  So, in the spirit of sharing, here are some of the tech tools I use and how I leverage them for genealogy, if that is not their primary purpose.

Online storage:    I have a free Dropbox account that I keep filled up with genealogy photos and docs – particularly those that I might want to access on my phone.  Then, of course, there is Tonia’s Roots, which could be considered another form of storage as it has a copy of my genealogy database and most photos and images.  I’m also moving more and more of my research notes and plans to Evernote, so that I can access them across various devices.

Backup:  I’m a little obsessive about backups, because I have lost stuff before and I have worked too hard rebuilding my files to let it happen again.  I use Mozy for automatic backs of my entire hard drive.  I also make a manual backup from time to time and store it at my office.  Oh, and I keep a copy of my RootsMagic file on a flash drive that is almost always with me.

Phone:  iPhone

Phone apps: Evernote and Dropbox (see Online storage above); Gedview, which is just a great tool; Scanner Pro (although honestly, I find myself using this more for work than genealogy); and Ancestry.  I also have Tonia’s Roots pinned to the screen, so I can access it with one tap.

eBook Reader:  Kindle.  In addition to traditional genealogy books, I also convert genealogy journals that I receive electronically to Kindle format, so that I can read them on the go.

Tablet computer: Not yet, but there is an iPad in my very near future.

Text editor/word processor:  I use Microsoft Word for traditional word-processing and Notepad++ if I’m doing anything code-related.

Spreadsheet:  I use Excel – a lot.  Spreadsheets are my go-to resource for anything that needs to be presented in tabular form and especially for information that would be more easily analyzed if it were sorted or filtered.

Downloadable forms:  CensusTools – I use a modified version the CensusMate spreadsheets and have used the Census Tracker.  Most other downloadable forms I have found are in pdf format, so I usually download forms for ideas and then create my own version in Word, Excel, or OneNote, depending on how I plan to use it.

Note taking:  Evernote and OneNote.  I’m looking forward to trying out Note Taker HD when I get the iPad, and I also want to try out Awesome Note for both phone and tablet (it syncs with Evernote).

Graphics/Image editing program:  Photoshop Elements, Picasa, Irfanview.

Screen capture:  Windows snipping tool.

Social bookmarking:  Diigo is currently my favorite social bookmarking site.  I love that I can highlight text when bookmarking.

PDF generator:  Bullzip

Genealogy database:  Rootsmagic is my main genealogy program, but I also use Legacy (affiliate link) from time to time.  And TNG.

Podcasts:  I love genealogy podcasts!  I commute a couple of days a week, so by listening to podcasts, I feel like I haven’t lost those four hours.  I listen to the Family Tree Magazine podcast, Genealogy Gems (both free and premium), Genealogy Guys, and have recently added Geneabloggers Radio.

Mailing lists/message boards/online groups:  I subscribe to the TNG user group, Rootsmagic user group and Transitional Genealogists mailing lists.  I have RSS feeds for the Rootsweb message boards for many of my surnames and ancestral locations.  And, of course, the US-REC study group on Facebook.

Online classes/webinars:  I have watched several Legacy and FamilySearch webinars and I’ve done some of the online classes available through NGS.  I want to watch some of the SCGS webinars, but haven’t worked them into my schedule yet (there is one coming up on February 4 that I really want to see).

Online publishing:  WordPress and TNG

This is not an exhaustive list, but I think it covers the main tech tools that I use on a regular basis.

Any suggestions on other things I should try out?

I recently watched the recorded version of Legacy’s Sharing Genealogy Electronically webinar, presented by Geoff Rasmussen.  The Legacy Online Store describes this webinar as:

Sharing Genealogy Electronically. Join Legacy Family Tree’s Geoff Rasmussen as he presents a live workshop to both 1) the West Valley Genealogical Society in Youngtown, Arizona and 2) to a live webinar audience. The class will teach methods of sharing your genealogy in the form of a printed book, print-on-demand publishing, websites, and shareable CDs. The class, being taught live at the West Valley Genealogical Society’s library, is part of a 4-week Advanced Legacy course. Teaching to both a live brick-and-mortar audience AND to a live online audience at the same time is something we have never tried before. Maybe it will work. Maybe it … well … we’ll be positive here and hope for the best.

I’ll be honest. . .I did not expect to learn much of anything from this webinar.  After all, I have a website and a blog — I share my genealogy electronically all the time. I was pleasantly surprised.

The webinar covered much more than I thought it would:

• publishing to book (this is the section I really got into)
• publishing to the Internet
• publishing to CD
• publishing to DVD

Publishing to Book

This may seem like an odd addition to a webinar on electronic publishing; however Geoff goes over some of the pros and cons of traditional print publishing vs. print-on-demand; he also gives step-by-step instructions for creating a book at Lulu.com.

He then offers a set of strategic guidelines for creating a book:

1. Do the research
2. Create the skeleton using one’s genealogy software program
3. Export the skeleton to a word-processing program
4. Add the “meat” – photos, scanned documents, etc.
5. Generate a Table of Contents and Index
6. Publish the book

In Item 2 – Create the skeleton, Geoff goes step-by-step through the process of generating a book.  The instructions are Legacy-specific (no surprise, there), but I think there would be many similarities with other genealogy programs.

Publishing to CD or DVD

These are the other sections of the webinar that I found intriguing.  Geoff walked through the process of creating multi-media presentations using a program called Passage Express, which is available as a stand-alone product or as a free add-on to Legacy.  These multi-media presentations were so impressive and would be a great way to share family history with those family members who are not so interested in the genealogy.

Much more information was covered during the webinar and I consider the time as 109 minutes well-spent.

I’m giving away a copy of this webinar.  Click here to see how you can enter the drawing.  If you would like to purchase a copy, you can do so at the Legacy Online Store.

*Disclosure:  I received a free copy of this webinar on CD as a blogger gift at SCGS Jamboree.  I’m also an affiliate of the Legacy Online Store and receive a small commission on any purchases made if you click on the links from my webste, although your cost remains the same..

Back in November, I decided I wanted to track the time I spent on various genealogy projects.  One reason for this was to be able to better plan my monthly to-do lists (I have a tendency to overbook myself).  I knew I wanted a web-based system (preferably one that was free).  There are several available, but Toggl appealed to me as soon as I saw it, so I decided to give it a test run.  I’ve been using Toggl for three months now and I don’t know how I lived without it. (Note that this is toggl – no e.)

Everything about Toggl is so easy and intuitive.  To get started, you can either sign up by entering your email address and a password or simply log in with your Google account.  It doesn’t get any easier than that!

Click on any image to see a larger version

To start tracking your time, just type in what you are working on and click start.  It’s automatically date- and time-stamped.

When you stop working, click stop and you are left with an entry that shows exactly how much time you spent, down to the minute.  When you get ready to work on that task again, just click continue.  You never have to type anything again on the same task, which is one of my favorite features.  There are some things that I do every week, so I scroll back to the last time I worked on the task and click continue.

Toggl totals up your work for the day and you can see as many days on the home page as you like.  You can add projects to group various tasks together and add tags as well.  The clip below shows my total hours spent yesterday.  The projects are in black in the middle of the screen, tasks are to the left, and the  yellow blocks to the far left are tags (a post about how I use tags is forthcoming).  Then to the right of the project, you can see how much time I spent on the task and when.

Reports are available for any time period and can be filtered by project and/or tag.  This shows the work on my Forrester Research project last week.

Reports can also be viewed in tabular form and downloads to csv and pdf files are available.

All of this and more is available in the free version of Toggl.  The ability to track clients requires an upgrade to a paid plan (which I would totally do if I were doing client work).  The paid version adds some other features as well, but I find the free version has everything I need and want.

I really love this program.  It took a little time to get into the habit of using it, but now I open Toggl first when I get ready to work on genealogy, so it’s always there on my desktop.  The good news is that if you forget to click start or stop, you just go back and edit the time entry.  You can also add entries for work that is done away from a web connection (such as at a cemetery or courthouse).  Android and iPhone users can use Toggl on their phones, but there is not a Blackberry version available, so I make a note of my time and enter it when I get back to a computer.

If you are interested in a time-tracking tool, give Toggl a shot and let me know what you think.

Thomas MacEntee over at GeneaBloggers has a meme called What I Do. Thomas says:

you basically list what you use in terms of technology to either run your genealogy business or pursue your family history as a hobby.

Here’s my list:

* Hardware:  Dell Inspiron I1720 laptop

* External storage: a couple of 4mg flash drives – these are really just for portability & backup.

* Online storage:  Mozy (paid version with unlimited backup – love Mozy)

* Backup:  Mozy | flash drives | plus quarterly I back up to CD, which I take to my work location.

*Firewall – I’m not crazy about my current firewall and don’t want to give them any publicity.

* Virus protection: AVG (free)

* Spyware: Spybot (free)

* File cleaner: AML Registry Cleaner (free)

* Printer: HP Photosmart C8180 All-in-one – printer, copier, scanner

* Phone:  Blackberry

* Mobile media: Ipod Nano (3rd gen)

* Music player: Ipod Nano

* Car audio – Rockford Fosgate, I think – whatever came with the vehicle.  I mention it only because I listen to genealogy podcasts in the car.

* eBook Reader: Kindle (love my Kindle)

* Browser: Firefox (default) | IE8 for a few sites that don’t play well with Firefox | Chrome, occasionally

* Blog: WordPress (self-hosted)

* RSS: Google Reader

* FTP: Smart FTP

* Text editor: Microsoft Word | Notepad++ (free and highly recommended if you do any kind of web development)

* Graphics:  Photoshop Elements 6.0 | Picasa (free) | just starting to use Irfanview (free)

* Screen capture: Snipping Tool

* Social media: Twitter (via Hootsuite & Twitter for Blackberry) | Facebook

* Social bookmarking: Del.icio.us

* URL shortener:  ow.ly | tinyurl

* Office suite:  Office 97 (I know, it’s old, but for home use, I really don’t need anything else)

* E-mail:  Gmail | Windows Mail

* Calendar:  Groupwise

* Accounting:  Quicken

* PDF generator: Cute PDF (free)

* Genealogy database: The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding | RootsMagic 4 | Legacy 7

* Genealogy tools: GenSmarts | CensusMate | Ancestry.com | Footnote.com

* Other tech stuff:  Firefox add-ons & extensions:  Firebug, Web Developer, Colorzilla | Evernote (online, for PC, & for Blackberry | Excel for tracking just about anything | numerous WordPress plug-ins

What techie tools do you use to help you in your research?

Thanks to Geneabloggers for generating this meme.  I’ve seen several things already that I want to add to my toolbox.  To see other posts on this topic, click here.

I‘ve been using Evernote for a little over a week now and I love it.  I wanted to share what I like about it, how I’m using it and, hopefully, gets tips from others.

As a brief overview for those who are unfamiliar with Evernote, it is a note-organizing software program.  There are desktop versions, a web version, and smartphone versions, all of which sync so that you can have access to your notes no matter where you are.  The tag line on the Evernote home page sums it up:

Use Evernote to save your ideas, things you see, and things you like. Then find them all on any computer, phone or device you use. For free.

That’s sounds great, but what does it look like in practice?  Let me start with my general philosophy.  I’m using Evernote as a general notebook for my genealogy research.  Anything that I might have printed in the past and and put in a pile on my desk to refer to later, I’m trying to put in Evernote.  I’m not using it to hold all my source documents.  I already have those online at this website.  I don’t want to duplicate my work and make things more complicated.  My goal is to simplify my research and make sure I have access to what I want when I want it.

Here are some examples of ways that I am using Evernote:

• Web clippings – when I find something that I think I want to refer back to later, I can clip the page into a note.  I’ve used various other services for this in the past – Delicious, Diigo, Google Notebooks, and plain old bookmarks.  What I like about Evernote is that it captures the page, not just a link to the page, so if the page or website disappears, I still have access to what I wanted.  It also captures the link, so I can get back to the original site.  It lets me add notes as well as tags, so I can remember why I wanted the page and it captures the date and time that I grabbed the clip.

• In addition to saving the text of a web page, you can also capture a screen shot.  I ordered a military file from NARA a few days ago; in the old days, I would have printed the order to hold on to until the file arrives.  Instead I captured the screen shot and put it in Evernote.

• PDF files – you can also add PDF files as notes.  I’m experimenting with transitioning my genealogy database to RootsMagic.  I found a RootsMagic tips sheet online, so I added it to Evernote.  That way I can access it from home or if I’m away from home and using RootsMagic-to-Go.  I also have the pdf version of Evidence Explained.  Even though I use the source templates in RootsMagic, I still like to refer to Evidence Explained to make sure that I am capturing all the information I need to for my citations (I’m obsessive like that).  So, of course, this is one of the first things I added to Evernote.

• Evernote for Blackberry – this is a fun little app and I’m sure the other phone versions are very similar.  I can do a quick text note, snapshot, or audio note from my phone and send it straight into my Evernote notebook.  The only one I’ve used so far is the snapshot.  I was reading the newspaper at work the other day and saw an article about a genealogy workshop to be held that weekend.  I wasn’t sure if I would be able to attend it, but I wanted a clip of the article, just in case it worked into my schedule.  In the old days, I would have made a photocopy, which would then sit on my desk.  Instead I took a snapshot with my phone and sent it straight to Evernote.  The really cool part of this is that Evernote has OCR technology and it can read the text of the newspaper article, even though I saved it as a photograph.  As an example, the subject of the genealogy workshop had something to do with tracing one’s Indian heritage.  I couldn’t remember the exact wording, so I did a search on “Indian” and the image popped right up.  I’ve read that the OCR also works with tombstone photos.  I can also see using the audio note feature a lot when I’m driving and think of something I want to do later on.  Lastly, I can retrieve any notes in my account and view them on my Blackberry.

There is a lot more that Evernote will do.  How do you use Evernote for genealogy?

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings wrote an interesting post last week about Google results when searching for names from your own trees.  He searched one one of his names combined with a location, using various search types and reported out the top results. 

I decided to give it a try with my own search results.

I have an Ancestry Member Tree that includes all my names (although I’ve recently taken it private), and a couple of versions of my family tree at WorldConnect (at least one that I can no longer access).  Then, of course, there is this site.  The Family Tree tab has all my research, excluding living people, plus my blog posts are here.  In addition, I have an old Blogger blog that I used before adding the blog to this site.  

I started by searching for this string:

Thomas Hemphill genealogy North Carolina (no quotes)

I chose Thomas Hemphill, because there are several people by that name in my database, many of whom are from North Carolina.  Captain Thomas Hemphill fought in the American Revolution, so he’s found a lot of places.  This seemed like a good, all-inclusive, name to search on.

46,000 results came back.  The top 10 include:

#1.  www.flackgenealogy.com – a personal website (which also uses TNG! – I need to drop them a note).

#2 & 3.  A user page at Family Tree Maker.com

#4.  A Linkpendium site for the Hemphill surname

#5.  A personal gedcom published at Angelfire

#6.  My old blog at Blogger

#7.  This site – the blog portion, to be specific

#8.   The Burke County, NC message board at Ancestry.com

#9.  A personal gedcom published at www.carolinagenealogy.org

#10.  A personal website:  www.ancestraljourneys.com

All these results, by the way, were for various Thomas Hemphills that I have in my database – so it wasn’t just returning pages that contained both the word Thomas and the word Hemphill.  Just to test it, though, I add quotes around Thomas Hemphill, making my search string:

“Thomas Hemphill” genealogy North Carolina 

This returned 1,110 results, quite a bit less than the 46,000 I got on the first search; however, the top 10 results were exactly the same.  Looking at the next page, which included results #11 through #20, my old Blogger blog appeared again at #17.

I decided to try one more search string, excluding the word “genealogy”:

“Thomas Hemphill” north carolina (with quotes)

Oh, this is interesting. 

#1.  A Footnote page that I created for Captain Thomas Hemphill

#2.  The Angelfire site that was #5 above

#3.  The Flack Genealogy site that was #1 above

#4.  A profile page for a Thomas Hemphill who is a professor at the University of Michigan-Flint.

#5.  The Carolina Genealogy.org site that was #9 above.

#6.  This site – specifically the database portion.

#7.  A profile for a Thomas Hemphill on LinkedIn.

#8.  My old Blogger blog

#9.  A personal website:  www.aylesworth.net

#10.  The site at Family Tree Maker.com that was in the #2 and #3 positions above

I find it somewhat disheartening that my old Blogger blog is showing up better in the results than my current site.  I haven’t posted anything there in about two years, maybe three.  I decided to try another branch of the family, which doesn’t seem to be as popular in online research, and searched on:

“Thomas Kendrick” genealogy Georgia (with quotes)

This site showed up in the #6 position.  I guess it’s good that I’m getting first page results, even if they are not close to the top of the page.  I see some World Connect results and a GenForum board in these results, also, which I didn’t see in the Hemphill searches.

So, what did I learn from this?

• As always, I need to write more blog posts about my ancestors.  Those seem to return good results. 
• I need to place more queries on message boards – not only do I have a chance of a response, but I know from looking at my stats that people are coming to my website from those boards where I’ve posted.
• I noticed, and you may have too, that none of the newer online family tree services showed up.  No WeRelate, no My Heritage, no Geni.com, etc.
• When searching, be sure to use quotes around the name, but also search both with and without the word “genealogy.”  The results are different.  Also do a reverse name search; i.e. “Hemphill Thomas.”  I tried this and got different results than I did on “Thomas Hemphill.”

Where does your blog or website or other online family tree stack up in search results?

Regular visitors may have noticed that Tonia’s Roots got a new look today!  I hope you like it as much as I do.

Reasons for Redesigning

• Although I really liked the old look, I was getting somewhat tired of it.
• The footnote plug-in that I use was not playing well with the old theme and occasionally caused really weird output on the home page.
• I wanted a cooler color scheme for summer (the old one was making me hot when I looked at it).

How I Did It

I’m somewhat comfortable playing around with colors and fonts in CSS, but when it comes to structural changes (moving a sidebar from one side to the other, for example), that is beyond my skill level.  I knew that there were WordPress frameworks available now that have a lot of customization capabilities, so I started checking them out.  Most have a fee, which I’m okay with, but then I found Atahualpa.  It’s a customizable WordPress framework that has well over 200 options.  And it’s free.  I decided to download it and take a look before I went with a premium theme.  With the aid of Firefox’s Web Developer Plug-In and the fabulous Atahualpa forums, I was able to make the new theme look pretty much exactly the way I wanted.

What’s Changed

Other than the color palette, not much is different.  A few things have moved around.  There is now a right sidebar on all but the Family Tree page.  The blog search and tag cloud have both moved over there.   A new Archives page contains the monthly archives that used to be available via drop-down menu in the left sidebar.  The left sidebar still holds the category menu, my twitter feed, and a cute new twitter icon courtesy of (MySiteMyWay), which can be clicked to follow me on Twitter.  The About page and the Family Tree page can be found on the top menu bar, instead of via tabs in the header image.  I’ve also moved the RSS feed subscription link to the top menu bar, which makes it much more visible than in its old position on the sidebar and I’ve added an email subscription link.

One of the changes I’m most excited about is the ability to include image thumbnails as part of the post excerpts on the home page.  A downloadable script is available that will let you do this, but it’s built right in to Atahualpa.

Previous Versions

This is actually the fourth redesign since I first launched Tonia’s Roots.

The first version was a straight-out-of-the-box (almost) TNG template.  I don’t have a screen shot of my own site, but here’s the template demo image:

This was okay and worked great for the first year.  But I started really wanting to add a blog to the site.  I had created a separate blog on Blogger and I would link back to this site, but I really wanted it all integrated.  I also wanted to use WordPress instead of Blogger.  Then I found someone who had created a CSS style sheet that could simulate the integration of WordPress and TNG.  This mashup didn’t work for me straight out of the box; I had to do some research to figure out how to fix the bugs and this is also when I learned how to customize CSS.  This version worked fine for about nine months, but every time there was a TNG upgrade, I had to do a lot of work on the integration.  Since I don’t write code, I sort of had to learn all over again every time, which was tiring.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an image of my WordPress-TNG mashup, but it was a really pretty soft blue with yellow accents.

Then, the TNG-Wordpress plug-in came out.  I was hesitant to use it at first, and frankly, it’s not perfect, but it is SO much easier to implement than the mashup.  I found a WordPress theme with a layout that I liked, and then used what I had learned about CSS to change the color scheme and personalize a few other things.

I’m still really proud of that version, but like I said, I was starting to get tired of it.  All of the above experiences led to the new Tonia’s Roots.

I will be futzing around with a few small details over the next few days.  If there are features you wish were here, or things you think would make this site easier to use, please let me know, via a comment below.

The software that I use to run the genealogy portion of this website (the excellent TNG), is fairly intuitive, but sometimes it helps to have instructions.  All the genealogy data can be found by on the “Family Tree” tab and these instructions apply only to that section of the website.

The most common question people have is “how do I find the person I’m looking for?  There are several ways to find people in the genealogy database.

Browsing surnames is one of the easiest ways to see individuals who are included in the database.  The main “Family Tree” page offers several ways to browse through surnames.  The bottom right portion of the screen (see the highlighted portion of the image below) displays the 30 most-common surnames in the database. (Tip:  Click on the  images to see larger versions.)

Click on any surname to see a list of all people with that surname.

If you would like see all surnames starting with a specific letter, you can click two places.  Then, click on any surname in the resulting list to see all people with that surname.

If you would like to see more than 30 of the most common surnames, you can choose how many surnames to display here, then click go.  The default is 100, but you can change that to any number.  You can also click on “Show all surnames” to get an alphabetical list of all surnames in the database.

You can get back to the Surname page from anywhere within the “Family Tree” tab by clicking on Surnames from the Genealogy Menu in the sidebar, by clicking “Home”, or simply by clicking on the “Family Tree” tab at the top of the page.

This post is part of an ongoing series about navigating and using the Tonia’s Roots website.  To see all posts in the series, click here.

The “Family Tree” tab (above) contains a database of all my genealogy research.  I thought it would be helpful to provide a navigational overview.

The Genealogy Menu is visible in the sidebar whenever you are in the “Family Tree” section.  It contains links to:

• Surnames includes a list of the top 30 surnames in the database, ordered by number of people, as well as links to all surnames alphabetically.
• What’s New includes recent additions and changes.
• Documents includes census images, military records, book excerpts, and more.
• Cemeteries shows where relatives are buried.  Drill down by location to see each cemetery and the people buried there.
• Headstones contains all the headstone photos I have, with links to cemetery and person pages.
• Places is a high-level overview of the locations where people lived, including the top 30 localities, ordered by number of places within that locality.  Click on the magnifying glass icon next to any location to see the people who lived there.
• Notes contains all my research notes.  Click on the link to see the complete family or person page to which the note refers.
• Dates and Anniversaries defaults to events that happened on today’s date in history.  You can search for any event on any day using the search fields at the top of the page.
• Statistics contains a summary of the database; see the number individuals, families, unique surnames, documents, sources, and more.
• Contact Us – click here to send me an email.

This post is #1 of an ongoing series about navigating and using the Tonia’s Roots website.  To see all posts in the series, click here.