Using Your Bookmarks Bar

I love to organize. Sorting, arranging, categorizing – those are all for me. As a matter of fact, my love of organizing is what got me interested in studying medieval history. But that is a story for another day.

And my love of sorting and organizing is one of the reasons that I love genealogy. Each person fits neatly into his or her place. Yes, it can take a lot of work and years to verify that this individual really does belong in this place, but the beauty of a fully fleshed out and properly sourced tree…..ahhh! bliss!

Which brings me to the subject of this blog. Are you taking advantage of your bookmark bar to properly organize and sort your frequently visited websites? Perhaps you all are, and perhaps, like some, you don’t really understand what you need to do and why messing with learning something new is of any use to you.

Trust me, your bookmark bar can be a great friend and a valuable asset to you in your research. It makes all of your websites readily available at your fingertips. Quick and easy access.

So start with a website you want to bookmark. You like it. You want to come back to it. It’s useful to you. Whatever. You just know that you want to be able to find it again. Look in the right hand corner of the address bar. See that star? That’s what you want. When you hover over it you get the message “Bookmark this page” so you know you are doing the right thing.

 Click on it. You should see something like this:

You’ll notice that the star has turned gold to indicate that the site address had been saved. The dialogue box tells you what name it is being saved under and which folder it is going to. Don’t like the name? Click the Edit button and change it. Want it to go into a different folder? Click on the dropdown menu and choose which folder you want the website to go into.

One of the options you get is “Choose another folder” which allows you to create a folder or even a subfolder.

Why would you want to do that? Let me show you with my bookmarks bar.

You see that I have my most frequently frequented sites across the bookmark bar. Nice different sites fit across the top and then the tenth is called “Genealogy Sites” with a folder icon on it. There is also that two carrot symbol on the far right of the bookmark bar. If you click on the two carrot symbol you get the rest of my “regular” sites.

But the one I want to show you is the “Genealogy Sites” folder. Click on that and you get this:

My Genealogy Sites folder is filled with sites that I find useful to me and want to be able to access again and again.

You will notice that at the top I have several subfolders for specific geographical locations. I told you I like to organize and sort! Rather than scrolling up and down looking for that particular English site, I can go directly to that folder and find the site I want. Like this:

Of course any system is only as good as you set it up, maintain it, and use it.

And my system might not work for you.

But play around with it, see what you like, how you want to find things, and where you expect to look for a specific website. Some sites that I use for multiple regions I put in more than one folder. And some aren’t geographically located, like the Measuring Worth site. But I love that one dearly and so it is always right at the top under my folders.

So there you have it: a quick tutorial in making the most of your bookmarks bar. Nothing fancy, but it can save you so much time and frustration. Especially if you are working in a shared computer.

Happy organizing to you!