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Research Notes

Research notes are notes with things you want to remember — much like yellow sticky notes on your desk, but linked to the people, places, and events they're about. You'll find them under Research → Research notes.

Previously called Research Tracks

The feature used to be called Research tracks. Your existing tracks are still there as notes — only the name and the look have changed.

What is a research note?

A note might be "Grandmother's maternal line", "Who was Anders in Lerbäck?", or "Check the household examination roll Kumla AI:12". It has:

  • Name — the note's title
  • Reminder — free text, e.g. "Next step: check household examination roll Kumla AI:12, 1877–1882"
  • Root person (optional) — the person the note starts from. Added automatically to the note's people.
  • Status — Active, Paused, or Completed
  • Links — any number of people, places, and events

A person, place, or event can be on several notes at the same time.

The notes

The notes are shown as cards. The title is at the top, the Reminder text is visible right on the card, and at the bottom are the root person and how many people, places, and events the note has.

The top edge has a color that shows the status, and the status is also written out on the card:

Edge Status
Yellow Active
Blue Paused
Green Completed

Filter and sort

Above the notes you can show all notes or only active, paused, or completed ones. On the right you choose the order:

  • Last changed (default)
  • Name A–Z
  • Status — active first, then paused, and completed last; within each status, most recently changed first
  • Created, newest first

The program remembers the order you chose for next time.

Create a note

There are two ways:

  1. Go to Research → Research notes.
  2. Click "+ New note".
  3. Give the note a name. Root person and Reminder are optional.
  4. Click Create.

Click the note button (the note icon next to the bookmark) in the header of a person's, place's, or event's page — or in the branch view. A dialog with two tabs opens:

  • New note — creates a note that already includes the record you came from. If you came from a person, they're suggested as the root person.
  • Existing note — click a note in the list to link the record to it. Completed notes are listed last. Notes the person is already on are marked Already included and can't be chosen again.

Click a card to open the note. Under each heading — People, Places, Events — you can:

  • look up and add a person, place, or event (type at least two characters)
  • click the cross next to a link to remove it from the note

Removing a link doesn't affect the person, place, or event itself — only the link to the note disappears.

Status and Reminder

Change the status in the dropdown at the top of the note. The Reminder text is saved automatically when you click outside the field — write where you were when you put the work down, so you don't have to dig it up again next time.

Delete a note

Click the trash can in the note. The people, places, and events that were linked aren't affected — only the note and its links disappear.

If you delete a person, place, or event that's on a note, the note stays; only the link is removed, and the confirmation shows this before you delete.

Deletion is permanent

Deleting a note cannot be undone.

See also