Tech Tuesday - OneNote For Genealogy ~ Research Bookmarks

I absolutely love OneNote. (And no, I don't work for the company and I'm not getting any compensation for this post.) Last year I shared how I use OneNote to create my Fab Finds Posts.

Today I want to share another way I use it. I've discovered that OneNote is a fabulous way to save my place while I'm doing genealogy research. You can think of it as digital scratch paper.

So, here's a real life experience I had while trying to find the death record for my Grandaunt, Edna Lillie Webster. I was looking through a record set on FamilySearch.org when the time came for our family to go to the movies. Hurray! We were off to see The Hobbit! But, I hadn't finished looking at the record set in FamilySearch. Bummer! So what did I do? I just used OneNote as a research bookmark.

It was super quick and easy!

In OneNote, I created a Research Bookmarks Notebook.  I organized the notebook like this:

• Sections (top tabs) = genealogy websites
• Pages (along the right side) = ancestor(s)

Saving my place using OneNote -

To save my place while I was researching Edna Lillie's death record, I copied the URL from the record set in FamilySearch.org, and then pasted it onto Edna Lillie Webster's page in OneNote. (see above)

 


When I'm ready to continue searching for Edna Lillie's death record in FamilySearch, I'll just click on the URL on Edna's page in OneNote, and I will be taken back to the exact location in FamilySearch.org where I left off.  How cool is that?!




But wait! There's more!

Let's say you don't want to create a separate Research Bookmarks notebook. Perhaps you've organized your genealogy research in OneNote by creating separate notebooks for different ancestors, surnames, localities or whatever. And you want to just add your research bookmarks within those notebooks.

But what about the possibility of these research bookmarks getting buried and forgotten inside all of those notebooks?  Will they be found again easily without having to go through each notebook? That's a valid concern if you're anything like me. I tend to research more than one ancestor at a time.

Well, there's an easy way to find those research bookmarks again. How? By using the "tag" feature in OneNote.

Simply create a "Research Bookmark" tag in the "Tag" drop-down menu.




Then place that tag next to each research bookmark you create. Tags help you "remember" where you have placed your research bookmarks.




To find all of your research bookmarks again, just click "Find Tags" at the top of OneNote.




You will then see this handy-dandy box (below) on the right side of your OneNote page. You can search for tags by Tag Name, Section, Title, Date, or Note Text in the drop-down menu.

Now you're all set to find the Research Bookmark you are looking for and resume your genealogy research.  Once you've found the bookmark you want, just click on it and you'll be taken to that page in your OneNote notebook.



So, that's it! I hope this will be a helpful tool for you in your genealogy research.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

Copyright © Jana Last 2013

Tech Tuesday–OneNote for Your Blog ~ Fab Finds Posts

Thanks to Caroline Pointer’s posts "Using OneNote to keep up with those ancestors" and "More OneNote Features to Rock Your Researching World", I have become a OneNote fan!

I'm not saying I'm an expert by any means.  But I have found OneNote to be very useful for my genealogy blog.

And I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel and show you how to use OneNote. Caroline Pointer, as well as others on YouTube, have already done that.

What I do want to share with you today is how I put together my weekly Fab Finds posts.

Yes, you guessed it.  I use OneNote to help me with these posts.  It’s a great organizational tool!  I've created several Notebooks for my blog and one of them is called Fab Finds Posts 2012.

The Fab Finds Post Notebook is then organized by month.  And within each month I've created a page for each weekly post.

So, here’s the process for my Fab Finds posts:

As I read posts during the week, I copy and paste the link of the posts I especially like to the current week's Fab Finds Post page in OneNote.

Then when I’m ready to publish my Fab Finds post, I go through the list of potential Fab Finds candidates.  I click on each link, which then takes me to the author's blog.  I could just copy the link from OneNote, but I like to actually revisit the blog first.  I then copy the link to Windows Live Writer.

As I go down the list of blog posts in OneNote, I insert a check mark next to the blog posts I’ve transferred to my draft in Windows Live Writer.

Once I’m done, I post the draft to my blog, preview it and then publish the post.  Voila!  Finished product!

Another perk to my method?  In the process, I am building a list that I can refer to at any time.  "Oh, where was that post about such-and-such?  Oh ya, I have it listed in my Fab Finds Notebook in OneNote."

Thanks for reading!

Jana

Copyright © Jana Last 2012