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?

Captain Thomas Hemphill is the ancestor who really got me interested in genealogy, but I’ve had his will sitting in my inbox ever since it arrived in the mail from the North Carolina State Archives in 2009.  Yes, almost three years.  Why has it been languishing, you ask?

Well, it’s not just a will – it’s a contested will – and all the court papers are included, so this little packet is 9 pages of legal-size paper that needs to be transcribed.  I needed something to motivate me to tackle this project and I can thank Valerie Elkins, my partner-in-crime in US-Records Study Group for assigning us to transcribe a will as part of our Familiar Records Practices chapter.  As soon as I saw the assignment, I knew that the time had come to pull Captain Thomas out of the inbox.

Since it is nine pages, I’m going to transcribe and post it one page at a time as a series.  Here’s page one ¹.

Click to enlarge

Transcript

State of North Carolina

Burke County }      At a Court of pleas and quarter

Sessions formed and held for the County aforesaid at the

Court House in Morganton on the fourth Monday in

July AD 1824

The following issue was made up and entered on the record of the Said County Court in the case to wit.

Thomas Hemphill & Polly Hemphill

Legatees & Devisees in Support of the

Will of Thomas Hemphill deceased

Vs

James Hemphill & Moses Whitesides & wife}        Devisavit Vel Non

On the aforesaid fourth Monday in July 1824 Came the Said

Thomas Hemphill & Polly Hemphill by their Attorneys D. F.

Coldwell and A. L. Ervin Esquires. Then also came the said

James Hemphill & Moses Whitesides & wife.  This case between the

Parties had continued over from Court to Court until July

Sessions of the Said County Court 1826.  When Came the parties

aforesaid by their Attorneys aforesaid and also a Jury to try

the truth of the issue, to wit,

1 [???]by Young                5 Samuel Bowman           9 William Caswell

2  Joseph Burnett             6 Lazirus Philips                 10 Zachariah Downs

3  Seth Bradsher               7 Reddick Trumau            11 James McK Onail

4 Henry Paine                    8 Larken Hartley               12 John Rutherford

The Jury finds the paper writing produced is the last

will of and Testatment of Thomas Hemphill deceased.  From

which verdict the Said James Hemphill & Moses Whitesides prayed

an Appeal which was granted to Burke Superior Court to be

held at the Court House in Morganton on the fourth Monday

in September next, having entered into bond with approved

Security.

Copy Record

Attest

James Ervin Clk

The above record now secured and filed in the office of the

Clerk of the Superior Court September 25^th 1826

What I learned from this page:

There is not much of genealogical significance to be gleaned from the first page, but it does confirm some information found in other, derivative sources.  There is also one piece of crucial information implied that conflicts with other sources.  I will need to read the remaining pages to be sure I’m correct, but. . .

Parties to the case:

• Thomas Hemphill & Polly Hemphill – this would be Thomas McEntire Hemphill, Captain Thomas’ youngest son (and my ancestor), and Mary Hemphill, an unmarried daughter.
• James Hemphill & Moses Whitesides & wife – James is either the oldest or second oldest son (Samuel  is not proven; he may not be a son or if he was, he likely died before Captain Thomas).  Moses Whitesides is a son-in-law, having married Elizabeth Ann Hemphill (two of Moses’ brothers married two of Elizabeth’s sisters, so there are three Whitesides sons-in-law – just to keep things confusing).

Date of Captain Thomas Hemphill’s death: 

• I have his death date as 4 May 1826 and the source is his tombstone inscription.  HOWEVER, this particular stone was placed by the SAR in the 1990’s.  His original marker is completely weathered and illegible.
• James Hemphill, Moses Whitesides & wife originally brought suit over the will in July 1824.  They would not have done this unless Captain Thomas was deceased, would they?
• The case continued over until July 1826.  I think the death year on the tombstone has been picked up from this court document incorrectly and that it is really 1824; we’ll call this a hypothesis for now.

Stay tuned for more of this estate file in upcoming posts.

Late in 2009, the Ancestry Insider started a series of posts proposing a self-assessment model for genealogists, which culminated in the Genealogical Maturity Model.  While I don’t agree with all the descriptions, it can be a useful way to measure one’s skill set.  I’ve used the tool before, but did not keep a record of my results.  As part of my work of the US-REC Study Group, here’s an updated assessment. . .

Step 1. Self Evaluation

In each table below, read the descriptions for each level. Place a check mark in the row that best describes you.

Sources

As a genealogy hobbyist with a full-time job, my time is spent mostly using online records.  However, I do use a wide variety of record types and I’m not afraid to contact record custodians if the document I seek is not available online.  I personally think this section needs to be re-written to take out the bias against online records.  If I can access images of documents online, then it is a more efficient use of my limited time to do so, rather than writing or driving to a far-away repository to access the same records.

Citations

I agree with Michael Hait’s assertion that 4 and 5 should be reversed.  The ultimate goal should be to give complete and accurate source citations, whether one uses genealogy software or not.  I’m giving myself a 5.

Information

Evidence

RootsMagic  4 and 5  have a great little feature in the Citation Manager that allows one to assess the quality of the source for each citation, using the evidence classification described in the Genealogical Proof Standard.  Sources can be marked as original or derivative; information can be marked as primary or secondary; and evidence can be marked as direct, indirect, or negative; all three pieces also have a “Don’t Know” option.  Using this feature has been invaluable to me, because that is when I really began to apply that level of critical thinking to each bit of data I encounter in my research.

Conclusions

I’m giving myself a 3.5 on Conclusions, because I don’t feel like I’m quite “there” yet, when it comes to creating soundly reasoned conclusions.

Step 2. Tally

This next exercise is optional. It is a non-scientific method of determining your “genealogical maturity.” Write your level number in the table below for each category above. Add up all the numbers and write the total in the last row.

I actually averaged mine, because the original article included one additional section, so the “total” ranges are inflated without that section.

Overall Rating:  Proficient

Step 3. Improve

Review the categories and pick one to work on. See what you need to do to advance from your current level to the next level. Make that your goal. Don’t try and work on all categories at once. Baby steps. Don’t try to skip levels. Baby steps. Commit to yourself and focus your efforts on that one, little goal.

Once you’ve accomplished that goal, come back and pick another area for improvement.

Writing conclusions is the area that jumps out at me and it goes along with another skill that I’m working on – writing research summaries.  Bart Brenner over at Stardust ‘n’ Roots  noted in a similar post that “having the data [is] not enough.”  It’s easy to get caught up in finding new records, extracting data, and citing sources, but without the written conclusions, we don’t really move forward with the research.

Randy Seaver’s challenge this week is to:

Find a living male person in your database from your maternal grandfather’s patrilineal line who could take a Y-DNA test. Answer these questions:

1) What was your mother’s father’s name?

2) What is your mother’s father’s patrilineal line? That is, his father’s father’s father’s … back to the most distant male ancestor in that line?

3) Can you identify male sibling(s) of your mother’s father, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.

4) Tell us about it in your own blog post, or in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook or Google Plus post.

I decided to take this back one more generation, because it’s more pertinent to my research needs.  So the questions I’ll answer are:

1) What was your maternal grandmother’s father’s name?

2) What is your maternal grandmother’s father’s patrilineal line? That is, his father’s father’s father’s … back to the most distant male ancestor in that line?

3) Can you identify male sibling(s) of your maternal grandmother’s father, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.

Here is what I found:

Memaw and Pepaw Ward

1.  My grandmother’s father was Newton Coleman Ward.  That’s him on the right.  Newt was born 24 Oct 1890 in Newport, Georgia and died 1 Aug 1974 in Dalton, Georgia.  He and Rachel had only one son, Worth, who died as a young man, so any yDNA will have to come from a collateral line.

2.  Newt’s father was William Harvey Ward (1864-1933), born and died in Fannin County, Georgia.  His father was Harvey D. Ward, born about 1840 in North Carolina.  I can’t go back any further in this line.

3.  Fortunately, Newt had six brothers and five of them lived to adulthood and at least three had families.

3a.  Edward Clifford Ward, born April 1893, had three daughters and one son (I’m not posting the names of this generation as they may still be living).

3b.  William Dallas Ward, born 21 Jul 1897, was married, but I don’t know if he had any children, as I haven’t done much research on him.

3c.  Coles H. Ward, born about 1900, is another of my great-grandfather’s brothers that I haven’t researched.  I don’t know if he married and had children.

3d.  Charlie C. Ward, born about 1904, had three sons (one died in 1945) and a daughter.

3e.  Virgil Taft Ward, born about 1907, is another brother that I know little about.

So, there are at least 3 male descendants of my great-grandfather’s brothers, which is good, because their father was the only boy in his family (that I know of).

If you are a descendant of any of these Wards and have done DNA testing on this male line, please contact me.

One of our first topics in US Records Study Group was “Organizing and Evaluating Research Findings.”  When people talk about “being organized,” I think they are often referring to the physical “stuff”:  the documents, photos, and artifacts that they have accumulated.  Can any of this stuff be located at a moments notice?

I have a pretty good handle on my stuff, because I keep all my records in electronic format.  This is not to say that I don’t always have a backlog of things to be added to the computer, because I do, but everything that is in the computer is named and filed using a system, and tagged extensively, so that a quick computer search finds whatever I want.

The areas that plague me have less to do with finding the documents and more to do with the questions “what have I already done with this person/family/document and what do I need to do next?”  In other words, with keeping up with where I am in the research process.

In The Researcher’s Guide to American Genealogy, Greenwood suggests that we write regular research reports to ourselves, just as if we were working with a client.  I have done this a few times, but not with any kind of regularity, and I can definitely see how it would be beneficial.  Every time I switch family lines, I have to completely refresh myself on my prior research and half the time I find myself wondering “why did I think that?”  I have citations for all the facts, but I don’t always have documentation for my conclusions.  I think that a research report that lays out the events and conclusions in chronological order, and that also includes all the abstracts, transcripts, and photocopies, would be very helpful in getting myself back up to speed and I want to get in the habit of writing them.

Greenwood also suggests that we write reminder notes at the end of a day’s work.   These notes will probably vary from day to day and project to project, but could include a to-do list, sources to check, next steps, what you did last, etc.  The general idea is to be able to “read your reminder and proceed from where you left off,” whether that is days, months, or even years later.  I usually have a file folder by the computer of things I’m working on and I always think I’m going to remember what to do next, and if I get to it in the next day or so, I usually do.  But sometimes I find myself picking up a file folder a long time later than I intended to and then I’m just lost.  I want to get in the habit of writing a quick sticky note and dropping it in the working file.

These are not New Year’s Resolutions and I hesitate to call them “goals,” even though I put that in the post title.  They are simply habits and additions to my process that will help me be more efficient and organized.

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?

Walter Patton Hemphill, my great-grandfather’s eldest brother.

John Lytle was born 26 Jan 1820 in Burke County, North Carolina. He died 18 Jun 1892 and is buried at Bethel UMC-Old Cherry Springs Cemetery in Old Fort, North Carolina. John was the son of George Lytle and Susannah Clark and a grandson of Captain Thomas Lytle and Susannah Perkins. He married another Lytle-Perkins grandchild, his first cousin, Lizzie Lytle, the daughter of Millington Lytle and Polly Potillo.

Martha Lytle, yet another Lytle-Perkins grandchild and first cousin to both John and Lizzie, was my third great-grandmother.

This photo has tentatively been identified as Benjamin Burgin Hemphill, my 3rd great-grandfather.  If you have information confirming or disproving the identity, please leave a comment.

Jesse Burgin was born 3 Apr 1803 and died 2 Feb 1890.  His wife, Rosamond Burgin, was born 26 Jan 1806 and died 11 Aug 1879.  They are buried at Bethel UMC-Old Cherry Springs Cemetery in Old Fort, North Carolina.  I believe that Jesse and Rosamond were first cousins, but I haven’t proven that yet.

Jesse’s sister, Malinda (Burgin) Hemphill, was my 4th great-grandmother.