Genealogy Specific Library

Has anyone had experience adapting Endnote for use as a “Genealogy specific Library”. For instance, Endnote offers a standard “Reference Style” for “government documents”. In a “Genealogy Specific Library” government documents might have a variety of different formats, such as: US Census, State Specific BIrth or Death Certificate. These in turn may be available as hard copy documents, in the case of Birth Certificates, or through various online "repositories (e.g FHL or NARA). These referneces then may be used either in a publication or in a private “genealogy type document” such as a Family Group Record. I am wondering how others have dealt with these challenges? 

It shouldn’t be that difficult, but you would need to “reuse” some of the existing reference types editing them to contain your needed fields, and then adjust the bibliography templates to use these fields in the correct order.  I am a genealogist, but haven’t yet needed to do this, however.  But I could see why it would be useful.  The ref type table can be exported then, and with the customized output styles,  shared with other like-minded individuals!  

Thanks for the input. I primarily use EndNote for medical/scientific references, primarily journals and creating a bibliography for papers, a purpose for which EndNote is ideally suited. After stumbling around for awhile I discovered the Edit/preference option and began adapting  “Reference Types” for Genealogy specific documents and sheltering them under a new Output Style “GenRefs”. Slowly but surely I’m getting there. It’s been a trial and error experience with emphasis on error. 

2 Likes

Thank you for your post.  I am having the same issue.  I primarily use Endnote for scientific/medical publications and wish to use the program for a historical/genealogy publication.  I wish to be able to build a Reference Type for Census Records and Vital Records.  Since your post have you been successful in creating these Reference Types?  If so which fields have you found useful to use (e.g.  author, year, title) to have it work within an estabilshed reference style (e.g. APA or MLA).

I was wondering how you have got on with using Endnote for family history research. I have quite a large tree on Ancestry, which has its own system for uploading media and attaching them to specific people. This doesn’t entirely satisfy me, because I may collect documents such as family histories or reference books which cover a large number of people, or local history or military history which are about places or regiments and battles. I have started using Endnote for storing books found on Hathi Trust (.ris file download tonEndnote for iPad works well) and archive.org.