How to use Research Trail

A short walk-through, from a research question to a finished research report. The video has captions throughout, and the full transcript is below.

Transcript

Research Trail is a research log for genealogists. It runs in your browser, and your research stays on your device.
Start with a research objective: one question you want to answer. Add who it’s about, and what’s already known.
Now log your first search: the repository, the record set, and the names, years and places you searched for.
Choose the result: found, nothing found or inconclusive. Then note what you found.
Searches that find nothing matter too. Log what the search covered, so nobody repeats it.
Link a source, and fill in its citation fields once. Research Trail builds the citation, ready to reuse.
Plan the next searches as you think of them. When you’ve done one, log the result in a click.
Filter the log by result, or search it, to see what you’ve ruled out.
When you’re ready, open Report. Add your conclusion under Details, and it appears in the report.
Download the research report as an editable Word document or a PDF, in A4 or US Letter.
The research calendar lists every search, done and planned, in date order on one page.
With Pro, log your time, bill it to a client at their rate, and download an invoice-ready time summary.
Download a backup now and then. It’s one small file, and it’s how you move your log to another computer.
Try Research Trail free at researchtrail.onibaku.co.uk.

The video uses a made-up family and made-up records.

Try it with the sample. Open Research Trail with a sample objective already filled in, and click around.