Use Zotero to Organize Your Research

I think we’ve all had the ‘BSO’ experience; you know, when you are searching for the dad’s great-grandma in the death records and stumble across your mother’s uncle, so you get distracted by the Bright Shiny Object and search his surname. You get 20 hits! You are afraid you won’t find them when you need them, so you start downloading like crazy, only to find yourself with a mishmash of documents you will forget you have when you need them. You will repeat the search at a later time!

Today I want to talk about organizing those ‘finds’. Janine Adams has recommended that when you come across these BSO’s, you make a note so that you can go back and get them when you need them, then continue with your intended search. But how do you make your notes? Until recently, I used Evernote. Just save my link, make a quick note and tag it, and be on my way. However, I’ve learned I’m not really an Evernote kind of person. My saved links and notes in Evernote have become just as big a convoluted mishmash as if i just saved everything to one folder on my hard drive. Evernote just wasn’t working for me, so I began exploring other options. Today I want to tell you about one of them, Zotero.

I first read about Zotero on Janine’s blog earlier this year. Zotero is software that was designed by university researchers to help them track their sources and format their citations. With Zotero you enter some basic information, depending on the type of source. Even better, if the source is online, you can capture much of this information with a simple click using a browser add-on for Zotero. You can add notes, tags (color-coded!), and links to the file on your hard drive. You can even save the document right to Zotero! This is a nice feature, because allows you to access your file from any browser on any device. The downside is that if you save your documents to Zotero, you will run out of free space quickly and need to purchase extra storage. My solution has been to keep my genealogy documents in a folder i sync to my Google drive, making them available where I have an internet connection. It’s not quite as convenient as a simple click in Zotero, but it’s not terribly inconvenient either, and it’s free!

I have to be honest, when I started using Zotero, my initial reaction was ’NO WAY!’. It didn’t do two of the main things I’d hoped for. First, I couldn’t save my documents into Zotero to access anywhere without buying extra space. That obstacle was easy to overcome, as i mentioned above. The second issue for me is that I’d expected I could save a link and get instant, perfect, Evidence Explained style citation formats. Nope—doesn’t do that. I was spending a LOT of time struggling to enter the right info to get perfect formatting; something I spend a lot of time trying to do in my Reunion software database on my computer. It seemed like a terrible duplication of effort and I was ready to throw in the towel 3 days after I started. But I’d made a commitment, to myself, to give it 30 days, because it often takes that long or longer for me to discover the ins and outs of new software.

 When I thought about it, while perfectly formatted citations would have been a nice feature, it wasn’t really the problem I’d set out to solve. I was looing for a way to track my sources and BSOs. So I contined my trial I knew I’d give it up after the 30 days, but I’d made a commitment! And to my surprise, I love Zotero! I’m feeling much more organized, and as I slowly add documents to it, I’m finding things in my collection I didn’t realize I had. I’ve broken through two brick walls since I started using it, simply because I’m taking time to analyze my documents as I move them to Zotero! 

If you think Zotero might fill a need you have, I have a couple of recommendations. First, Donna Cox Baker has written an excellent ‘how-to’ book for Zotero users, Zotero for Genealogy. I recommend you get your hands on a copy of it, either through your local library or personal purchase, (Sidenote: my library is WONDERFUL about acting on purchase suggestions. Yours might be, too. You won’t know unless you ask!) Once you have your copy, before you even download Zotero, read her book cover to cover! Then go back and read it slowly, completing each exercise, including downloading and installing Zotero. After you complete the exercises you are ready to go off on your own, but keep the book handy to refer back to. Also visit Donna’s Zotero for Genealogy discussion forum. There is a lot of helpful info there, and she is quick to respond to questions!
 

My other suggestion is that you not give up on it without giving it a fair trial. My 30-day commitment was perfect for me. It gave me the time I needed to learn what the software can do for me. With any luck, you will find it just as helpful as i have! If you decide to give it a try, i’d love to know what you think of it!

The NGS Conference was Fantastic!

 I attended the National Genealogy Society conference last week. It was very convenient, as it was only a 15-20 minute drive from my home, or about half of what I do most mornings! It was my first time attending, my first ‘big’ conference, and a great experience!

I learned so much. There were so many knowledgeable speakers there with so much information to share! I had a couple of big take-aways from the conference that i think will help me immensely, and picked up some smaller tips as well.

First, I able to see some of the experts in action and follow their thought process in solving am ‘unsolveable' problem. Tough there may never be a perfect resolution to a particular problem, that doesn’t mean it can’t be solved. Too often, I run into a ‘dead end’ when I’ve researched and give up. For example, I’ve found a death record for my great-great grandfather and learned he was born in Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There is no mention of parents on the death record, and unfortunately, his 1822 birth took place before births were recorded in Bucks County. Now what? Well, for the last ten years, my answer has been to move on to another line. How can I ever find his parents, let alone prove them? Now I know that the lack of a birth record does not mean I can’t build a case using other records. I just have to know where to look and how to put the case together!

The other big take-away I got?—I need to SHARE my research! It does no one any good if I’ve spent all these years researching only to keep my new-found knowledge locked away in my computer! I sat in on several writing sessions, and picked up lots of good tips, but none more important than this—It doesn’t matter WHERE I share my research—a family book or newsletter, a local genealogy publication, a national publication, or even a blog post—but it is important that I write SOMEthing and share it SOMEwhere!

I picked up some very specific tips to help me with my particular research problems by wandering the exhibition hall and talking to individual speakers at their booths. I stopped by James Beidler's booth after his session on ‘Beginning Your Search for Pennsylvania Roots to get some help with the great-great-grandfather I mentioned above. He suggested trying to find Grandpa in the freeholders tax records and hoping that a potential father lived nearby, then searching for a baptism record. Then I stopped by the St. Louis County Library’s booth after attending Dan Lillienkamp’s session on Ortssippenbücher to get advice on finding the towns my German ancestors were from. I now know to look for church records, as they were probably more detailed that the civil records.

I also had a big tech problem resolved! Many years ago I had an account on a site called Gencircles, and I’d loaded a few trees to it—long before I was as careful a researcher as I am now. I know that those trees were at best, incomplete, and at worst, possibly wrong! In the meantime, Gencircles was purchased by My Heritage. Though I could see the trees, I was unable to access them. I no longer have access to the email account that I used to create the trees with Gencircles, so i couldn’t just reset my password. I’ve been trying for a few years to get access unsuccessfully, apparently not able to explain my problem to My Heritage support in a way that they could understand what I was trying to achieve. But I stopped by their booth this past week, explained my problem, and within 15 minutes I had access to my old trees! Awesome! Thank you, My Heritage!

One more thing that happened at the conference—I sat down in one lecture hall and started chatting with the person next to me before the session started. She mentioned that she drove down from a small town about 2 hours away and that she was originally from the small town that I grew up in. We graduated from the same high school! In fact, her older sister graduated with me! After talking a bit more, something clicked, and I pulled out my iPad. I browsed while she chatted, and then asked her her maiden name again. I thought so—you are in my tree! It turns out, we are distantly related by marriage. Her cousin was married to my thrid cousin once removed!

I had a great experience at the conference and can’t wait to do it again. If you ever get the chance to go, you definitely should! You may just meet a cousin!

It's Been Awhile!

 It's been awhile since I've blogged. The main reason for my break from blogging is that there were a couple of weeks in a row where I just couldn't think of anything to blog about that matched the prompts. Then instead of doing what I should have done, which is to just move on and continue with the next prompt that inspired me, I gave up on the challenge. I didn't even bother reading the prompts to see if they triggered anything! So I'm hoping to jump back in soon, even if it is just to post "the prompt this week is ________ and I have nothing to say about it,"

The good news in this long break is that I've been spending time actually researching my family history. I feel like I've accomplished a lot! I've broken through two long-standing brick walls! Of course that has created more questions and brick walls. I'll share some details in a future blog post.

I've also learned to use a new piece of software, Zotero. I committed to trying it for a month before deciding to keep it, but I'm pretty sure it's a big YES! I'll blog about my experience with Zotero in a future post, too.

I've also spent the last week or so preparing to attend the National Genealogical Society Conference in St. Charles, Missouri next week. There are so many interesting classes being offered that it is hard for me to decide which ones I want to attend—or more exactly, which ones I'm going to have to pass up! The positive here is that the syllabus has a lot of good information I can use, even if I can't attend a particular class. If you are planning to be at the conference, drop me a comment—maybe we can meet up.

I hope to be back posting regularly in a couple of weeks. Until then, happy hunting!