Develop family history projects in Notion

After you have set up the foundational Notion databases for family history, you need to develop your project pages so that they assist you with your research. You can do this in many ways, but this article will provide you with the basics and some suggestions.

If you followed the instructions in my article, Manage family history projects with Notion, you now have a Project database, a Research Questions database, a Tasks database and a Notes database. And you have also created projects for your grandparent lines, and some places and themes.

Each line in a database is a page in Notion, so when you created these projects you also created a new page for each project. I call these ‘project pages’.

The next step is to add research questions, tasks and notes to your projects. This process also creates a new page for each question, task and note. I call these ‘research question pages’, ‘task pages’, and ‘notes pages’.

Every research question, task and note must be assigned to a project. That connection is what helps you manage your projects and progress your research. It also helps you navigate around your Notion workspace and find the relevant page.

Use macro buttons

I recommend you create and use macro buttons to add new pages, as they save time and promote consistency. Place copies of the macro buttons on your Home Page and on any other page where they will be useful, such as your project pages.

Instructions for family history macros in Notion

Add research questions to projects

Grandparent line projects need research questions or hypotheses to guide and focus the research. You can also develop research questions for place and theme projects, but those are not essential.

1. Go to your Home Page, or to the relevant project page if you have added macro buttons to that page. Click on your New Research Question macro button to add a new research question to your Research Questions Database. The page for that question will automatically open.
2. Click on the light grey text that says New Page and type a research question, such as: Who was Maria Shaw’s father?
3. Add the ? icon. You do not need a cover image.
4. The Properties (columns) are listed under the Title. Find the one that says Project, click to the right and select the project for the grandparent line relevant to your question. Fill in the other properties if you can, or leave that until later.
5. Repeat, this time add another research question, such as: Where and when did Paul Willis die? Assign it to the project for the grandparent line relevant to your question.
6. Repeat until you have at least one research question for each of your grandparent line projects.

If you wish, you can use the same process to add questions to place or theme projects. Just choose the relevant project in step 4.

Add tasks to projects

Grandparent line projects need clearly identified tasks to find answers to research questions and test hypotheses. You can also identify tasks for place and theme projects, but they are not essential.

Follow the steps above to add some tasks to your projects, but this time:

• use the New Task macro button
• choose an icon for tasks, such as the list icon
• assign them to both a research question and a project.

You can record working notes on a task page. However, you should put any notes that you want to keep on the associated notes page, as task pages should be archived when the task is completed.

Add notes to projects

Follow the steps above to add notes pages, but this time:

• use the New Notes macro button
• choose an icon for notes, such as a music note
• assign them to a research question, a task and a Project.

Unlike tasks, notes pages do not get archived, so you should use these pages to record your notes about the tasks and questions.

You can also create notes pages that are assigned to a project but do not have a related question or task. For example, you can add notes pages to a place project for a country for towns or villages within that country.

Consider using different icons for different types of notes. I use:

• a magnifying glass icon on notes pages that are evidence summaries
• a quarter music note (one vertical line) for notes pages from books and other sources
• an eighth music note (two vertical lines, see image above) for other notes pages.

Customise your project pages

Your project pages are like a Home Page for your project. Customise them however you like, but for project management purposes I recommend they contain:

• key information about the project, such as a family tree chart
• a summary of progress, your research goals and priorities
• links to other pages related to the project, and
• anything else that will help you manage the project.

Links to other pages can be created by typing /link to page and then select the relevant page. URL from external web pages can also be added.

You should also customise the project pages using linked databases. Instructions for these will be provided in other articles.

Back to the Notion in family history page.