Saturday, August 16, 2014

Cyndi's Other List

Most genealogists should have heard of Cyndi's List, a huge directory of genealogy resources on the internet. I have been lucky enough to have met Cyndi Ingle in person at Rootstech.

http://www.cyndislist.com/

I am a huge fan of Evernote who is always looking for further ways to further use the product. When I heard that Cyndi was presenting a webinar for SAG members about Evernote for genealogy in National Family History Month I signed up and joined 74 other members and moderator, Heather Garnsey, online for the gig.

If one thinks of Evernote as list of things then this presentation could have been called Cyndi's Other List. Cyndi packed a lot into the allocated time talking at a rate of knots to get through her topic, thankfully she speaks clearly and well. She quickly outlined the structure of Evernote before launching into live demonstrations using her Evernote account.

It was interesting to see the way Cyndi uses Evernote in her genealogy. She uses it heavily for tracking her research and saving resources. I picked up a couple of tips from Cyndi that I will find useful.  I like the way she sets up a folder and saves related stuff into it when she is doing freebie research for friends and that she can then share the bits in that folder to the friend via a link.
I hadn't used the Table of Contents feature and will find that useful for one notebook I have. I was also reminded that one can save notes to different formats - something to explore.

Having grown used to Google Hangouts on Air I found it strange going back to the Goto Webinar platform, I missed the interactivity and video components of Hangouts. The webinar felt like a formal lecture, a "chalk and talk" activity. There was time for five minutes of questions at the end of the lecture, I wish this could have been extended to allow for more discussion. I was lucky to have had a couple of questions answered but I should have asked if Cyndi uses Evernote as an organisational tool for Cyndi's List.

Thanks Cyndi for sharing how you use Evernote and for the handy handout you prepared for us. It was great to catch up with you from downunder.

5 comments:

Alex Daw said...

Ooh I'm a bit sorry I missed this presentation. I love Evernote but am sure I am only using it at one tenth of its capacity.

Jill, I am finally following up on our earlier discussion this week about feedback on your blog. Where do I begin? You've done great tidying up work on your blog.

If I had to choose one thing I liked most about your blog - it is your "voice" - such a great sense of humour and so generous with your knowledge. I love what TNG can do for you in terms of displaying your family tree and am sorely tempted to swap programs to take advantage of it.

I have looked at all your tabs and really like how you've organised everything.

I wonder if you, like me, feel somewhat ill-served by the About Me link which goes to Google+ profile. I'm not sure that it really works. I found the Qualifications and Memberships info under your Topics Tab more informative.

I am clutching at straws here in terms of suggesting improvement - all I can suggest (and I am guilty of the same crime) is to remember to click the "open new tab" box when you hotlink to someone else's site. Yours is such a great site I'd hate to think you lose people when they go off to look at those wonderful links you provide. Happy blogging!

GeniAus said...

Thanks, Alex.I'm blushing.

I hadn't given too much thought to how my links open. I will try to temember to do that in posts that don't have lots of hyperlinks.

You've just reminded me that I haven't added my recent GOONs membership - will fix that now.

I appreciate the feedback.

Wendy said...

I'm here with a handy dandy little review of THIS blog, although I'm not sure whether I was supposed to look at this one or your new one. Maybe I'll do both. First of all, I like the clean and spacious feel (and that makes me even more aware of how cluttered by sidebar is). I like your contact page -- what a great way to post all your social media links. One feature that could be better is the archives button. I wish there was an indication of the year as well as the month. Since I don't use that on my own blog, I don't know whether you can even control it.

Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting.

Cassmob (Pauleen) said...

I would loved to have heard this talk but not a SAG member. Thanks for sharing an overview.

Unknown said...

I watched this webinar as well. I haven't really used Evernote so there was a lot of information to take in about an unfamiliar program & process.

I have the handout saved so I will give Evernote a try with my research using the handout. This is one I really wish there was a replay for!

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