Zotero 8 for Genealogists checklist

 Here’s a compact “Zotero 8 for genealogists” checklist you can drop straight into a briefing or handout. Each section is one pass through your setup.

1. Upgrade, backup, and plugin sanity

• Confirm you’re on Zotero 8.x and that sync is green before changing anything.zotero+1

• Make a full backup (Zotero data directory) before major plugin or Better BibTeX changes.zotero+1

• Review installed plugins and remove anything you don’t actively use, because some older plugins have caused crashes or upgrade problems under Zotero 8.retorque+1

2. Turn on Zotero 8’s “evidence‑first” features

• Learn the new unified citation dialog and practice adding page/line/entry locators directly in the search bar (e.g., “Smith 1900 line 10”).zotero+2

• Start opening longer research notes in note tabs to get the full‑screen, distraction‑free writing space when drafting proof summaries.[zotero]​

• Use the Connector’s new tag autocomplete and “add note while saving” to capture quick research comments as you clip sources from Ancestry, FamilySearch, or local archives.zotero+1

3. Make annotations do real genealogical work

• Highlight and annotate within Zotero’s PDF viewer, then tag annotations (e.g., “identity conflict”, “negative search”, “DNA correlation”).zotero+2

• Use Advanced Search with “Item Type is Annotation” plus Annotation Text/Comment to pull all annotations mentioning a place, surname, or FAN club member.zotero+1

• Remember that annotations now appear under attachments in the items list and are included in “All Fields & Tags” and “Everything” searches, so you can search your marked‑up evidence directly.zotero+2

4. Clean up collections and tags for genealogy use

• Treat collections as project / person / case containers, not as workflow; keep items in the lowest relevant subcollection only.zotero+4

• Standardize a small tag vocabulary for status (e.g., “status: reviewed”), evidence type (“type: residence”), GPS stage (“gps: conflict”), and line (“line: Finnie”), then turn off automatic web‑tags to avoid bloat.zotero+3

• Build key saved searches (e.g., “gps: conflict AND NOT gps: resolve”) so Zotero can give you ready‑made lists for writing proof discussions.zotero+3

5. Better BibTeX and citation keys (only if you need them)

• If you rely on Better BibTeX, update to a Zotero‑8‑compatible BBT (8.0.x) before doing anything with citation keys.zotero+2

• When the “citation key migration” dialog appears, choose the option that migrates your existing BBT keys into Zotero’s native Citation Key field if you already use those keys in manuscripts or markdown projects.zotero+1

• After migration, inspect a small test collection and exported .bib file to confirm that keys match what your external tools (e.g., Zettlr, Obsidian) expect; if keys vanished or changed, use BBT’s redo‑migration option from the Help menu within the first restart window.zettlr+2

6. Daily genealogical workflow habits to reinforce

• Save every new source with at least one collection, a couple of meaningful tags, and a one‑sentence note explaining why you saved it.guides.library.harvard+2

• When you review a document, immediately add or update status/GPS tags and create at least one targeted annotation that you could quote in a proof argument later.guides.library.harvard+3

• Before drafting a research report, run saved searches (by line, place, GPS stage) and open the resulting items and notes in tabs so Zotero 8 becomes your integrated “evidence binder” while you write.heise+3

Would it help if I now turned this into a one‑page PDF‑style handout outline you could give directly to class participants or include as an appendix in your briefings?