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Which Item Types are you using?
Since I decided to paste the citations I already have into a note and I like the idea of the different icons for each item type I thought those might be a good visual for different types of items. Here is what I have so far.
Item Type:
Document: Certificates and individual entries in parish registers
Map: Atlas, and individual maps
Presentation: Genealogy conference syllabuses
TV Broadcast: Webinars
Newspaper Article: Anything from a newspaper
Manuscript: Genealogies written by others and standard manuscripts.
I also have a number of microfilms I am debating on using the Film for those or the Book. I am leaning towards the Film.
I think Artwork will work for photographs.
I would love to hear how others are using Zotero.
Ann, Can you explain this a bit more? Do you have a "Citations" Collection and then Item Types with the appropriate icons in your research list? Are you then putting all of your existing citations as child notes under the appropriate category? One note with, for example, all of your marriage certificate citations, under Documents, or individual notes with one marriage certificate citation? I started out linking to a Citation log that is a xlsx sheet, but that isn't working very well for me. Looking for a better idea.
Hi Linda, Years ago I changed the way I stored files on my computer. Surname files were not working for me. I ended up using a variation of the FamilySearch catalogue using locations. As a result, I have a main folder called Genealogy within that folder are folders for various countries. Within the country, folders are things like Austria_ Church Records, Austria_Cemeteries. I have a US folder that contains various states. Each state folder has various other folders like church records, land records, BMD's etcetera. For Minnesota in the BMD folder are separate folders for Birth's Death's & Marriages. This is because of the number of certificates/records for Minnesota. I have almost 1000 death certificates from Minnesota. These are divided alphabetically.
In Zotero I started with Austria. In my Austria folder, I have four folders that are by FHL microfilm. For example:
FHL 1729765 Franstanz Church_Books
FHL 1729766 Franstanz Church Books
FHL 1729768 Dornbirn Church Books
FHL 1738745 Satteins Church Books
Some of those contain individual parish registers. These are all scans.
In Zotero I set up the folders to mimic what is on my drive. For Austria, So far I have Austria Books and Austria Church Records. There will be more as I add more to Zotero.
Under Austria Chruch Records I added each parish entry separately. This way if I open the folder on Zotero I have a list of documents/register entries from the church books in Austria. As more are added I may have to move them to different folders.
For the individual entries, I used:
Document Type: Document
Title: Baptism Gstach, Agnes Maria [type of entry, Surname, Given Name]
Date 22 January 1822 [Date of the event]
Next, I added a note to the document. I think those are called child notes? The title of the note is Citation. This is the note for the above Document. In some of the notes, I have full transcriptions and translations. Since most of these citations are already in my genealogy program it is just a matter of copy and paste.
Saint Sulpitius Catholic Church (Frastanz, Austria), Sacramental Register, Book 4, Baptisms 1803-1845 (entries are in Latin), p. 1822, (upper left), 2nd entry, baptized 22 June 1822, house no. 98, Agnes Gstach; FHL 1729765, item 3.
Father Jo Christian Gstach, mother Agnes Ludescher, Sponsors Ägydius Schmid, Franziska Mock.
The last thing I did was added a link to the image on my computer to the document in Zotero.
Now looking at the link it looks like I could put the citation with the link to the image and not have a separate citation note. I am going to have to think about that.
My thinking was if I sit down to write I can search for all the items I have and my citations will already be linked to the document.
I couldn't figure out how to add an image to this post which would have made this easier:) to explain.
One more item I discovered that is really cool is the related tab.
In my library, I have the following items.
The Asa Fitch Papers volume's 1-3
The Fitch Gazetteer all 4 volumes
In the path of war: children of the American revolution tell their stories
Their Own Voices: Oral Accounts of Early Settlers in Washington County, New York
All of these contain portions of the Asa Fitches manuscripts (7 volumes) that were microfilmed as The History of Washington County, New York Compiled by Asa Fitch,
I also have a copy of the microfilm which I have digitized.
The related tab allows me to link them all together.
Linda, Here are some clips of what I described above. One from my computer and one from Zotero.
Uploaded files:- You need to login to have access to uploads.
Well, Ann, it looks like you've been in Zotero for ten years! Wow! Excellent work!
Laughing my bottom off. Thank you, Donna. I hadn't heard of Zotero until the day I purchased your book a couple of weeks ago. I can't tell a lie. From 2008 until 2017 I lived fulltime in my RV traveling the US researching. My dad died in 2017 and it became apparent mom could not live alone. I became her full-time caregiver. Most of my books and paper files had been in storage since 2007. I still have to find a couple of more boxes. At least I think there are a few more boxes. I am using this time to get organized, scanning and writing up my research.
In just a few weeks Zotero has become the answer to my biggest challenge. Where the **** is that?
I can't begin to express my appreciation of your timing in publishing your book.
Ditto to everything Ann said - I had not heard of Zotero prior to Donna's blog posts, and then it took the book to get me really energized! Donna you are an inspiration!
Thank you, Ann. Your screen shots were very helpful. Linking to my documents and adding the corresponding citations in notes is quickly replacing my citation spreadsheet. My surname folders are working well for my U.S. ancestors, but my Norwegians with patronyms mixed with farm names work better by location/farm. It is always interesting to see what works for others. Amazing how much you have already accomplished in Zotero! I need to get busy.
Zotero is replacing my todo list spreadsheets with the benefit of putting everything together. It sounds like the same is happening for you. I haven't been able to make surname folders work for me the way most people seem to. I do have some folders for specific people whose biographies I want to write but so far that is all.
