Genealogy collaboration by email

 There are two ways I can think of to collaborate by email. Please scroll to bottom where I write about my inspiration.

Evernote provides each user with a unique email address that allows you to forward messages or attachments directly into your default notebook. You will find your in "Account info..."

Tell your collaborators to CC ALL emails to the Evernote email address. If you don't want it to go to your default notebook designate another notebook in the subject line. If you want the email to go to the notebook "Mary" write @Mary in the subject line.

Using gmail (or any extra email address) What I would do is get an email address that you use for NOTHING else but your collaboration with one person. Then have your collaborator send emails directly to that address.

WAIT! Get Permission to share!

If you are going to share email correspondance in a folder online for anyone to see you need permission! Here is an example email asking for permission:

Subject: Permission to Share Family History Emails in Public Dropbox

Dear [Name],

Thank you again for the helpful information you've shared about our family history. I’m organizing all the correspondence I’ve received into a Dropbox folder that will be public, so that other relatives and researchers can access it — both now and in the future.

I'd like to ask your explicit permission to include your emails in that public folder. This would mean:

• Anyone with the link can read your messages.

• The folder will remain available long-term, and may be downloaded or cited by others.

• I would include your name as the author of your emails, unless you ask me to remove or anonymize it.

If you're comfortable with this, could you please reply with a line like:

“You have my permission to include my emails in a publicly viewable Dropbox folder for family history purposes.”

If you'd prefer I limit access or only share certain messages, I’ll gladly honor that. Just let me know.

Thanks again for your generosity and for being part of preserving our family’s story.

Warmly,
[Your Name]
[Your contact info, if needed]

Here is a second email if you would like to include the emails in a book you are writing:

Subject: Request for Permission to Share Family History Emails (Dropbox, Book, or Website)

Dear [Name],

Thank you again for the valuable information you’ve shared about our family history. I’m working on organizing and preserving this material so that it can benefit others — both now and in the future.

I’d like to request your permission to do two things with the emails you’ve sent me:

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1. Include your messages in a public Dropbox folder

This folder would be:

• Publicly viewable (anyone with the link can read it)

• Shared with family members and genealogy researchers

• Archived long-term as a resource for others

2. Quote or reference your messages in future publications

This may include:

• A family history website

• A printed or digital book or article, including works that may be offered for sale

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If you’re comfortable with this, you can simply reply with something like:

“You have my permission to include my emails in a public Dropbox folder and to quote them in any future family history projects, including publications that may be sold.”

If you’d prefer to limit how or where your words are used, or if you’d like to stay anonymous, I’ll absolutely respect that — just let me know.

Thank you again for your kindness and generosity in helping preserve our shared history.

Warmly,
[Your Full Name]
[Optional: your email, phone, or project website]

What inspired me to start an email collaboration is the work of Agnus Pearlman.

ALL of her MASSIVE amount of genealogical notes has been archived at OCCGS. I know this because she has written about my ancestor, Thomas Bailey Christian of Indian Creek, Virginia. What is beautiful is there are several collections of correspondence she had with friends about different family lines. It is so vast that is very hard to describe. I have thought about the many email conversations I have had but I didn't save them! I think they would be so interesting for people in the future to read. Well, what I am doing is starting now! And what I want to ask you is just go check out the "Agnus Pearlman Project" and see if your family is in there. I'm posting here because a lot of the work is about Virginia. But ... you just have to see for yourself! Hopefully find your family or get inspired to archive your genealogy conversations!

Compiled Research Agnus Pearlman Project

Surnames & Mononyms

 When beginning your genealogy journey, it’s wise to decide early on which version of a surname you’ll use consistently. This is especially important if you rely on tagging systems—such as Evernote—for organizing your research.

For example, in my own family I have relatives with the surname appearing as Skaggs, Scaggs, and Skegs. Early on, I chose to tag every related note simply as “Skaggs” to keep things uniform. Otherwise, I’d have to remember to search three different tags every time I wanted to find information on that family line—a needless complication.

I was going to write here on what the consensus is on which box to add a mononym, first name or surname? But it seems there is no consensus.  So I will do more research and come back to this.

Wikipedia: Mononyms

Wikipedia: List of legally mononymous people

One last thing about surnames - it has been a recent trend in my family that if we only have a mononym or a firstname for someone we will add their tribe to the surname OR their father's mononym as the surname (for example "Rachel Cornstalk") at first I didn't like this, it seemed inaccurate, but now I see the use for it - just trying to keep track of fathers! So now I like it.

Navigating Shared Ancestry.com Access After the Loss of a Family Account Holder

 

What is Ancestry's "Family Plan"? A paid subscriber (the plan manager) shares premium access with up to four others, each with their own account enjoying full benefits like record viewing on Ancestry, Fold3, and Newspapers.com.

What happens if the Plan Manager passes away or otherwise their account is closed?

Trees created or edited by added members are not deleted. They stay accessible for viewing and building, even on a free account.

Uploaded photos, documents, or saved items aren't deleted—they remain tied to the user's account.

If added members searched for and saved a document to their account, they will no longer be able to see their document but they will see the record information. It is recommended that added members save any documents onto their own computer because of this.

To regain full access, added users can subscribe individually.

Here is a good run down of the Family Plan at Family History Daily

Evernote explicitly states that none of your data will be lost when you cancel your subscription or downgrade. You’ll retain access to all your notes, notebooks, and content.

Although they don't really explicitly state what they will do so I would recommend that you backup your Evernote periodically. see Collaborating in Genealogy back up your Evernote

Collaborating in Genealogy back up your Evernote

Something important -  you can only back up one folder at a time for the simple method #1. This is why it is good to keep as few folders as possible. I have 50 folders and so it is just too tedious for me to back them up one at a time. So I just don't back up. I just wing it.

There are several ways to back up your Evernote notes, depending on how thorough you want the backup to be and how you’d like to use it later:

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1. Export Notes from the Evernote App

• On desktop (Windows or Mac):

  1. Open Evernote and select the notes or notebook you want to back up.

  2. Go to File → Export Notes….

  3. Choose one of these formats:

     • ENEX (.enex) – Evernote’s own export format; keeps text, images, tags, and attachments, and can be re-imported into Evernote.

     • HTML (.html) – readable in any browser, but won’t re-import cleanly into Evernote.

     • MHT (.mht) (Windows only) – a single web archive file.

• This is the most direct way to create backups you can re-import later.

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2. Back Up the Entire Evernote Database

• On Windows: Evernote stores data in C:\Users\[YourName]\Evernote\Databases\. Copy this folder to another drive or cloud storage.

• On Mac: The data is usually in ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/.

• This creates a full local backup, but you’ll need Evernote to read it.

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3. Use Evernote Web + Cloud Backups

• If you log into Evernote Web, you’ll always have a copy in the cloud.

• To be extra safe, you can regularly export your notes and store them in Dropbox, Google Drive, or another cloud service.

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4. Third-Party Tools

• Some tools can automatically sync or export Evernote data (e.g., Backupery for Evernote on Windows).

• These can automate regular backups to ENEX or HTML.

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5. PDF Backup (for Archival / Sharing)

• For long-term preservation, especially genealogy or historical notes, you can export or print individual notes/notebooks as PDFs.

• PDF is easy to read and archive but won’t re-import well into Evernote.

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👉 If your goal is safety + future portability, I’d recommend doing both:

• Export important notebooks as ENEX (so you can restore them to Evernote).

• Also export or print as PDF/HTML for long-term readability outside Evernote.

Perfect — here’s a step-by-step guide to set up automatic Evernote backups so you don’t have to think about it:

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🔄 Automating Evernote Backups

Option 1: Scheduled Manual Export (Easy, Built-In)

This keeps control in your hands but uses your OS scheduler.

On Windows

1. Open Evernote desktop app.

2. Select the notebook(s) you want → File → Export Notes….

3. Save as ENEX to a folder like C:\Backups\Evernote\.

4. Create a batch file (.bat) with this command (replace path):

   "C:\Program Files (x86)\Evernote\Evernote\Evernote.exe" /export "C:\Backups\Evernote\backup.enex"
   

5. Use Task Scheduler (built into Windows) to run this .bat file weekly.

On Mac

1. Export notes manually once as .enex to ~/Documents/Evernote Backups/.

2. Create an Automator workflow that repeats this export.

3. Use Calendar app or launchd to run it weekly.

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Option 2: Use Third-Party Backup Tool (Easiest)

If you don’t want to tinker with scripts:

• Backupery for Evernote (Windows only): Runs in the background, exports ENEX or HTML automatically (daily/weekly).

• Evernote2Onenote / Evernote2Markdown: If you also want to keep backups outside Evernote’s ecosystem.

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Option 3: Cloud Sync Safety Net

Even if you forget exports, you can:

• Store your Evernote database folder (Windows or Mac) inside Dropbox / Google Drive / OneDrive.

• Cloud service automatically keeps old versions in case you delete something.

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Option 4: PDF / HTML Archival Copies

For genealogy & historical notes you want permanent readability:

1. Export as HTML or Print to PDF.

2. Save to a “Permanent Archive” folder in your cloud storage.

3. Run a weekly/monthly sync tool (e.g., FreeFileSync, GoodSync, or built-in OS sync).

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✅ Suggested Setup for You

Since you care about long-term preservation & genealogy, I’d recommend:

1. Weekly automatic ENEX backup (to restore in Evernote if needed).

2. Monthly HTML/PDF archive (so it’s readable 50 years from now).

3. Store both in Dropbox/Google Drive/Archive.org folder for offsite safety.

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Collaborating in Geneaology - Ancestry.com

 

Sharing your tree: I don't think people really understand this, but you can share your ancestry.com tree without people being allowed to edit.

Collaborating in Genealogy

I have a folder of public domain books. I share the folder with one other person. They have a personal (paid) Evernote account. (I can only share with paid accounts because their free trial only allows you to have 50 notes and my book folder has 450 notes)

Yes, it would be possible for people to request they see 50 specific books I have saved but I don’t have time for that.

For my example here I am going to say that Catherine shares a folder of books in pdf form with Mary. Both Catherine and Mary have paid Evernote accounts.

Some tips to make sharing Evernote easier:

TAGS

Tags are immensely useful! Use them!

A problem I see right off the bat is that when Catherine shared a folder with Mary all of Catherine’s tags could not be seen on Mary’s Evernote. This really sucks. But we have to just roll with it. Mary can start fresh. For example, she can choose her most important research targets, search that word and then do this: For example, search for Cockacoeske in the book folder. It will come up with a list. Maybe 25? Click the first note.

Then scroll down to the bottom of the list and hold the Shift button down and click the last note in the list. This will select all 25 notes.

A menu will pop up on the bottom of your screen, click the tags icon

Now add any tags that are going to help you find this group of notes again.

Web clipper: I suggest that Mary downloads the Evernote Webclipper extension. It will save a webpage directly to your Evernote. I have a notebook titled “inbox” and I designated that as my default notebook in the Web Clipper settings. Everything is saved in that folder. I use this about ten times a day!

With your Evernote account you get an email address where you can cc or forward any email and it will go in your Evernote automatically. This is what it will look like. Let's say, for example, Evernote gave you the email xyz@evernote.com for this purpose (find your special email address in your Evernote settings). You want it to go into a folder named “Spokane” (create that folder first!) and how you do that is you write @Spokane in the subject line. 

You can also forward old emails using the same method.

A great use for this: say you are having conversations about family history with your great aunt Pearl. Teach her how to do this and ALL her emails will go into the designated folder.

Just a quick note about my Books folder: most of the books are public domain and fine to share, but a few journal articles are recent and still under copyright. Because of that, I can’t make the folder widely available.

Right now I’m only sharing it with one person since she understands she can’t repost or redistribute those articles. If you share your own folders, it’s good to make sure everyone knows the same ground rules.

Some glitches with Evernote:

1. Sometimes when you try to delete an image it deletes the whole note. You have to go to “trash” and restore the note

2. I have had a couple of books that were too large of a file for Evernote Desktop and it crashes Windows. What needs to be done then is to go to the web version of your Evernote and delete the note. Replace with a new note with just a link to the book and an explanation about what happened. I have only had this happen twice so far. One was “Wilderness Road”

3. In the past sometimes I would share a link to an Evernote note and when the user tried to see it, it required that they log in to Evernote. This is a bug. You do not need to have an Evernote account to see a shared note. This is a known issue. Hopefully it is fixed, I haven’t had it happen in a while.

Uploading a pdf to Evernote:

1. Go to the folder you want to upload to

2. From the dropdown menu choose “attachment”

Get in Touch

 Just a quick post here as cousins are asking me what are our resources for Shawnee & Powhatan DNA studies.

First, you need to get your DNA tested, I recommend Ancestry.com because 23 and me has been hacked and sold and... it is all too confusing. I don't like ancestry.com but where ya gonna go?

When you get the test back, then you download your results and you upload to Gedmatch.

How to upload to GEDmatch from AncestryDNA

Now, GEDmatch will give you a code - your "GEDmatch" you will use this to compare your "kit" to others. You want to see where you overlap. You do this in one to one comparison (in the GEDmatch drop down menu)

Then there is a way to see your "paint." Explanation by Sharon Willis Robinson

Do not share anyone else's GEDmatch numbers with anyone else. You can in private Facebook groups but not in any other way. So if you are approved to join a private Facebook group and that other person you overlap to is also in that group you can talk about it. But never anywhere else even in private email with your friends or family. This is just etiquette. It is very hard to keep track of everything so what I do is I have a private folder on Evernote where I keep all my matches, I contact people by Facebook messenger to ask if I can compare matches privately. Then I just don't share anyone's GEDmatch even on private Facebook groups because it is too complicated.

Now, you can join studies and I will get a list of those here or how you find them.

1. Go to GEDmatch "free tools"

2. Click on "Ancestor projects"

3. Search projects you are interested in

4. Request to join

This is just my rough draft and I will be working on this in the next few days...

Catherine dee Auvil 8/9/25

Another list of simple instructions at HughMcKenna.org