Zotero for Genealogy: Harnessing the Power of Your Research

By Donna Cox Baker

Zotero offers genealogists a powerful and versatile citation manager, an endless file cabinet, go-anywhere access to research, a flexible organizational structure, and the ability to file one thing in many places. Developed by George Mason University and used by scholars worldwide, this robust product serves research in phenomenal ways. Best of all, for all its value, Zotero is free to download.

An avid Zotero user since graduate school, author Donna Cox Baker proves it to be the perfect complement to genealogical research. Not only does it eliminate file cabinets, binders, and stacks of unfiled papers, it brings your voluminous research anywhere you have Internet access. Zotero for Genealogy teaches Zotero from installation to advance add-ons, using exercises and illustrations to enhance the learning experience. Baker teaches readers how to get the most out of Zotero and shares the various methods she has developed to maximize its value to genealogy.

What Zotero can do for a genealogist

◆ Eliminate paper and physical filing, replacing every file cabinet, box, and paper stack you used to think you had to have.

◆ Eliminate thousands of keystrokes as Zotero creates citations for you with the click of a button.

◆ Access your citations and notes virtually anywhere you have Wi-Fi and a computing device.

◆ Extract the comments you have made and the passages you have highlighted in a PDF, drawing them into Zotero without retyping.

◆ Find anything you have stored, with lightning-fast smart searching—even things you stored away years ago and remember only vaguely if at all.

◆ Replace the standard genealogy research log with something much better and more powerful.

◆ Build a smart to-do list that eliminates repetitive data entry and is there whenever you need it.

Table of Contents

PART I: ZOTERO GENERAL OVERVIEW

Getting started with Zotero

Documenting your research

Organizing research collections

Managing your attachments

Searching, sorting and finding your research

PART II: ZOTERO ADD-ONS

Zotero Connectors & instant data entry

ZotFile & advanced PDF management

Word processing & painless citation

PART III: APPLYING ZOTERO TO GENEALOGY

Organizing your filing system

One source or many: a choice

Working with Evidence Explained

Creating your research to-do-list

Efficient note-taking

Zotero on research trips

Collaborating with others

• Language: English
• Publisher: Donna Cox Baker
• Release date: Jun 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780999689929

Book preview

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ZOTERO FOR GENEALOGY

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The Golden Egg Genealogist Series

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Golden Egg Genealogists (GEGs) are marked by an ambition to excellence in the pursuit of their ancestry. Perpetually on their way to a better self, they know the treasures of genealogy offer themselves to the worthy. See gegbound.com for details.

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ZOTERO FOR GENEALOGY

Harnessing the Power of Your Research

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by

Donna Cox Baker

Golden Channel Publishing

Tuscaloosa, Alabama

Copyright © 2019 Donna Cox Baker

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Published in the United States of America by Golden Channel Publishing, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Cover design by the author. CC0 public domain image courtesy Max Pixel at https://www.maxpixel.net/Fantasy-Waterfall-Mystical-Woman-Desert-Mill-Mood-2820091.

Zotero is a project of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. It was initially funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. This book is not a publication of any of the above institutions. It is, however, produced with the permission of the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media.

Zotero is a trademark of the Corporation for Digital Scholarship. The Golden Egg Genealogist and Golden Channel Publishing are trademarked terms of Golden Channel Publishing.

ZotFile is an add-on freeware tool programmed by Joscha Legewie. His project is maintained at http://zotfile.com/.

Evidence Explained: Citing History Sources from Artifacts to Cyberspace, Third Edition, revised (2017) (EE), by Elizabeth Shown Mills, is a publication of Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, Maryland. The examples borrowed from EE are for educational purposes. The EE-to-Zotero method taught in this text is the creation of Donna Cox Baker and does not suggest the endorsement of EE’s author, publisher, or organization. Images and quotations from EE are used with the permission of the author. See supplementary information about EE at https://www.EvidenceExplained.com.

Limited portions of this text have appeared in blog postings by Donna Cox Baker on the Golden Egg Genealogist website at gegbound.com.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: The publisher and author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of this work and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales or promotional materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising therefrom. The fact that an organization, publication, person, or website is referred to in this work as a citation, example, and/or a potential source of further information does not mean that the author or the publisher endorses the information the organization, publication, person, or website may provide or recommendations it may make. Nor does such a reference suggest that the organization, publication, person, or website endorses this work, this author, or this publisher. Further, readers should be aware that internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared and the software might have been modified between when this work was written and when it is read.

Smashwords versions ISBN13 978-0-9996899-2-9

ISBN-10: 0-9996899-2-4

Print version ISBN 978-0-9996899-1-2

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2019900522

GCP1.0220190620G

Golden Channel Publishing

6552 Ash Hill Drive

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35405

goldenchannelpublishing.com

Visit our website and forum at

zoteroforgenealogy.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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For Mac and the babies

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO ZOTERO FOR GENEALOGY

—What is Zotero?

—How does Zotero serve genealogists?

—How should I use this book?

PART I: ZOTERO GENERAL OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 2: GETTING STARTED WITH ZOTERO

—Installing Zotero

—The Zotero Workspace

—Choosing Your Preferences

—Setting Up Your Free Zotero Account

—Retrieving Sample Data for Zotero for Genealogy

—Getting Help

—Summary

CHAPTER 3: DOCUMENTING YOUR RESEARCH

—Choosing Your Citation Style

—Viewing the Research List

—Creating a Research Citation

—Quick Data Entry Options

—Adding Notes

—Deleting and Restoring Items

—Creating Tags

—Identifying Related Record

—Summary

CHAPTER 4: ORGANIZING RESEARCH COLLECTIONS

—Using Zotero Collections

—Research Records Inside Collection Folders

—Moving Subcollections

—Deleting Collections and Subcollections

—Summary

CHAPTER 5: MANAGING YOUR ATTACHMENTS

—Before You Start Attaching

—Creating File Attachments

—Restoring Broken Attachment Links

—Summary

CHAPTER 6: SEARCHING, SORTING AND FINDING YOUR RESEARCH

—Basic Sorting

—Choosing and Controlling Columns

—Basic Searching

—Advanced Searching

—Tags

—Summary

PART II: ZOTERO ADD-ONS

CHAPTER 7: ZOTERO CONNECTORS & INSTANT DATA ENTRY

—Installing Zotero Connector

—Using the Zotero Connector

—Summary

CHAPTER 8: ZOTFILE & ADVANCED PDF MANAGEMENT

—Installing Zotfile

—Creating a Zotfile Reading Stack

—Extracting annotations without sending the PDF to the stack

—Summary

CHAPTER 9: WORD PROCESSING & PAINLESS CITATIONS

—Installing the Word Processing Add-on

—Zotero Tools in Your Word Processor

—Creating Citations in Your Document

—Adding Multiple Zotero Citations

—Editing a Citation

—Creating a Bibliography

—Summary

PART III: APPLYING ZOTERO TO GENEALOGY

CHAPTER 10: ORGANIZING YOUR FILING SYSTEM

—The Main Thing: One System for All

—My Very Simple Filing System

—Summary

CHAPTER 11: ONE SOURCE RECORD OR MANY: A CHOICE

—A Source Record with Many Notes

—A Case Study

—Testing Your Bibliographic Data—Style Preview

—Summary

CHAPTER 12: WORKING WITH EVIDENCE EXPLAINED

—Evidence Explained and the Mission of Citations

—Zotero and EE in Cooperation

—Maximizing EE-to-Zotero Conversions

—Using What Zotero Offers

—Working around the Challenges

—Handling Derivatives

—Summary

CHAPTER 13: RESEARCH LOGS & TO-DO-LISTS

—Research Logs

—To-do Lists

—Summary

CHAPTER 14: MORE OF ZOTERO FOR GENEALOGY

—Zotero on the Road

—Edit in a Separate Window

—Collaborating and Sharing

—Other Bibliographic Software—Imports and Exports

—Wrapping Up

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MORE FROM GOLDEN CHANNEL PUBLISHING

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I do not recall the first person who told me I should take a look at the Zotero software. Nor the second or third. I am grateful to all who sounded the call until I actually looked beneath the hood and saw the power it offered.

I am grateful to the Corporation for Digital Scholarship and the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University for creating this gem. And I thank the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and every other organization or individual who has funded this work and kept Zotero free. I thank Zotero forum superheroes Dan Stillman and Adam Smith, the first responders to essential forum questions over the years.

I thank Dr. Elizabeth Shown Mills for her always immediate, gracious, and sage counsel on this and other things. Her role in the professionalization of genealogy inspires me and fills me with gratitude. She models the excellence we Golden Egg Genealogists(tm) aspire to.

I thank Emily Richardson, my classmate at the Institute for Genealogy and Historical Research, who first made me think about the dilemma we genealogists face. Who will want to inherit forty boxes and four four-drawer filing cabinets filled with a lifetime of research on paper? It is for the Emilys of our world I write this guide.

Thank you, Blake Rochester, Linda Balderson, and the members of the Tuscaloosa Genealogical Society for being readers and guinea pigs as I moved past being a user to being a teacher.

Finally, as always, thank you, Mac, for putting up with my disappearance into my laptop every night as I got this project done. And to my fur-babies, Bootz and Skitz, thank you for tiptoeing across the keyboard whenever I needed to remember I have other priorities.

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PREFACE

Zotero revolutionized graduate school for me. It minimized the pain and hassle of gathering years of research, organizing it, analyzing it, and formatting it for publication. It truly harnessed the power of my research.

After graduate school for a doctorate in history, I turned my passion and attention back to my first love: genealogy. At first, I tried the research and documentation methods lauded in one genealogy book or website after another. Each seemed too clunky, too much duplication of effort, too limited, not powerful enough, not secure enough—too much or too little of the things I most needed. Then it suddenly hit me: Zotero, my graduate school miracle, would give me everything I really needed and a whole lot more I wanted for genealogy.

This product is fabulous now for all the reasons it was then, and so many more, when applied to genealogy. Here is just a brief sampling of what Zotero offers genealogists:

—Eliminates paper and physical filing, replacing every file cabinet, box, and paper stack you used to think you had to have.

—Eliminates thousands of keystrokes as Zotero creates citations for you with the click of a button.

—Accesses your source references and notes virtually anywhere you have Wi-Fi and a computing device.

—Extracts the comments you have made and the passages you have highlighted in a text-editable PDF, drawing them into Zotero without retyping.

—Finds anything you have stored, with lightning-fast smart searching—even things you stored away years ago and remember only vaguely

Reviews for Zotero for Genealogy

[thornton37814 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Donna Cox Baker offers genealogists a glimpse into the ways she uses Zotero to manage her research logs, research notes, to do lists, and digital files. She explains her simple filing system. While my system is broken out just a little more, I probably will not change the system to align with her method, and she suggests using what works for you and to use the same system for print as digital. While Zotero creates Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition citations, they do not align perfectly with genealogy's Evidence Explained style. She offers tweaks she uses to get similar data in her citations, but the order bugs me. For this reason, I probably won't use Zotero for creating more than simple book or article citations. However, I do like the power it offers in searching and indexing data on the hard drive and in linking to files on the computer and online. I feel she needed to explain the ZotFile extension a little better as I found myself still asking questions about how it worked. Baker's book offers a good introduction for genealogists, and it should help me in working with university students who wish to use it.