Sunday 29 November 2015

Tidying up Evernote tags

 If you have been using Evernote for any period of time it is possible that you have "ghost tags" in your database. These are tags that are not used by any of your notes. They may have been created for notes that you have now deleted or they may have come from a shared notebook which you no longer access.

Here's a quick method to clean up your tags. Open the desktop version of Evernote on your PC or Mac and scroll to the bottom of the side bar to select tags to view. All the tags you have used will be displayed along with the number of times that tag has been used.

Use CTRL or CMD to select all the tags with (0) next to them. These are the unused tags.

Simply right click and select Delete. Goodbye ghost tags.

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/11/tidying-up-evernote-tags.html

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Trove Tuesday - a new life for lists

Evernote to the rescue

In the course of my family research I have compiled a number of surname lists in Trove and while these are very useful for revisiting events, there is no way in Trove to search within each list to locate either a person, date or event.

As I have created lists within Trove, I have corrected the OCR then copied the corrected text from the newspaper article into the Note field for each item on my list. This means I have the full text without needing to search for it again when I want to build a family timeline or write a blog post. At this stage there is no method of exporting lists from Trove so that they can be modified and searched.

Enter my good friend Evernote. Why did this not occur to me earlier? I've used the web clipper in many other contexts but never thought to use it for lists. Individual items in Trove can be saved in a variety of formats but for lists the only current option is pdf.
Using the web clipper I've chosen Simplified article and saved. Now my entire list is searchable and able to be edited in Evernote. If I update the list in Trove, I can simply repeat the process and delete the earlier note.



So when I search in Evernote for "bridget galvin"  her name is highlighted within the Galvin list. The link back to the list in Trove is active as are all the individual links embedded in the list. All the source citations are embedded too.


Similarly, I can search using a particular year, e.g 1907, if I want to locate all the events that were published in that year. Some lists I have on Trove are private. Now they are in Evernote, there is no need for me to log in to Trove again to retrieve information from those private lists.
Trove and Evernote, a great combination.

This post first appeared on https://librarycurrants.blogspot.com

Wednesday 4 November 2015

Smart or not so smart matches on MyHeritage

The instant discovery technology embedded in the MyHeritage site affords a quick method for folks to add to their family tree without doing any research. The blog post with accompanying video explains how it works.
Instant Discoveries™ allow new users to progress from small tree seedlings, with only a handful of individuals, to large blooming trees with many branches, in just minutes.
Since its implementation I have been offered quite a few suggestions via instant discovery but have chosen not to add them as none have been related to my direct line of ancestors but rather to distant family members.

The Smart matches in MyHeritage also offer another way of discovering family members and since the implementation of Instant discoveries my Smart matches have risen exponentially.
Herein lies the problem - when I investigate the Smart matches offered, too many times I find that they are matches back to my own data that someone has added to their tree via an Instant discovery

Here's a great aunt appearing on my tree with citations for death and burial.


Now I find I'm offered a Smart match on another tree, same person indeed but no sources.
When I further investigate that profile on the other tree, I find the only source citation is a link back to my tree as the information has been added via an Instant Discovery but stripped of the event citations in the process.
I had confirmed several of these so called Smart matches before I discovered what was going on. 
So MyHeritage, do let me know why I should waste my time confirming what I have already input and perhaps explain why the event citations are not added in the Instant Discovery process. 

I have no problem with people finding and using my carefully researched data, but I don't wish to reconfirm it via smart matches every time it is used. Why not give them the source citations too so they can check it for themselves? Surely this would be a more responsible manner to promote verified data.

What do other MyHeritage users have to say on this topic?


This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2015/11/smart-or-not-so-smart-matches-on.html

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