

The price for the premium version just went up from $50 to $70 a year.

I pay for the premium version, so that I can access it when I’m not online. It’s my go-to place to store and retrieve all manner of things (and I use it a whole lot for non-genealogy purposes as well). In short, Evernote has become indispensable to me. Instead, I attach those documents to the source citation in Reunion on my Mac. I abandoned that as too labor intensive (though I can see the sense in it because it makes those documents exquisitely accessible). After the 2015 National Genealogical Society meeting where I heard a detailed talk on using Evernote for genealogy, I briefly tried storing images of the genealogy documents I’d downloaded (census records, vital records, etc) in Evernote.

I don’t store my genealogy research in Evernote. I consult it when I don’t know what to write. I jot down ideas for this blog and my organizing blog when they occur to me. When I’m planning a research or cemetery trip, I keep notes about hotels, logistics, things to remember to pack, etc. And clipping it means I don’t have to try to remember it, which frees up my mind. But when I do there are usually some treasures in there. Do I go back and look at it a lot? Not so much. I have a notebook called Genealogy resources where I clip interesting websites. I keep the list in Evernote and check it off as I go. As I described last month, I’m systematically reexamining all my sources in Reunion, verifying them, checking citations, ensuring that I’ve gleaned all the information I can out of them and adding images of each source to the citation. I helps me stay focused on the task at hand. That’s where I make note of the things that come up that I don’t want to explore at the moment. I have a notebook (in my Genealogy stack) called Genealogy clues/puzzles to check out.

Full disclosure: I don’t do it each and every session I just do it when it feels right. I have a very simple template in Evernote in which I jot down what I’ve researched that session. So here’s a source list of ways I use Evernote in my genealogy life: Before I do, though, I want to emphasize that this isn’t the best way or the only way to use Evernote. I thought it might be helpful to some people for me to describe how I’m using it for genealogy. I’ve become a big fan, though no one would describe me as a power user. Well, it’s two years later and I’m happy to report that I am actually using Evernote to help organize a bunch of things in my life, including certain aspects of my genealogy research. In 20 I posted here about how I wanted to give Evernote a(nother) try to help me organize certain aspects of my genealogy research. I have to admit I have been a slow adopter of Evernote.
