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Revision as of 08:14, 22 February 2011 by Cottrells (Talk | contribs)
A workshop at the RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, Saturday, February 12, 2011
FamilySearch Community Tools (TU229), presented by Fran Jensen.


During this hands-on workshop we learned how to become a part of the FamilySearch Community using tools like the Research Wiki, Research Forums, and online classes. The information shared in the workshop was added to this Wiki article to make it possible for anyone to explore and participate in the world of "community" with FamilySearch. We all know something that can help someone else find their ancestors!

Contents

Discover 21 Community Tools

FamilySearch Community Tools

FamilySearch Facebook Pages

FamilySearch Twitter Feeds

FamilySearch YouTube Channel


Integration of Community Tools

Forums

  • Social Groups - One of the community features in the Forums is the social groups. From the "Community" drop-down menu select the "Social Groups" option. Currently there are six different types of social groups that can be created: Ancestor, Surname, Organizations, Family History Centers, Indexing, Wards or Stakes, plus Uncategorized. Join an existing group, or start one of your own. Take the time to view several groups to get ideas for how you can use this community tool.
  • Locality forums – when you cannot find the answer to your research question in the Wiki, click on the link to the Forums and ask your question. Someone will respond, and if details are available in the wiki, they will likely include a link to the article. There are forums for Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Oceania, United Kingdom and Ireland.
  • Historical Records Forums - the Historical Records on FamilySearch will often link to an article on the Wiki that describes in more detail how to use the collection. Sharing your own ideas for using the records will help others with their own research, plus it will preserve the knowledge you've gained through experience.
  • FamilySearch Indexing Forums - Get help and also share your knowledge about indexing.
  • FamilySearch Wiki Forums - Discuss using the wiki or report technical issues. Leave feedback or post suggestions regarding how the Wiki can improve. Plus, the newest forum is specifically for contributor's. On this forum you can ask questions about contributing, how to add or edits articles, etc.
  • Additional forums include: FamilySearch.org, new.FamilySearch.org, Family History Center Support, and Forums Feedback and Help.

Research Courses

  • The option to give course feedback is a community effort. Example: German Town of Origin is sponsored by Teresa S. McMillin. Her course links to her website and also has the option to leave feedback about the course.
  • Linking courses to corresponding wiki articles is a community effort. Example: The Descendancy Research: Related Materials course links to the corresponding wiki article. Also note that the wiki article links to a three-part video recording of the course.
  • Anyone can add the links from the Wiki to the Courses.

Historical Record Collections

  • Records page will often link to "Learn more”. This is a link to the wiki page. See Utah, Salt Lake County Death Records as an example.
  • The Wiki articles that describe the usage of an historical record collection will also link back to the search option on FamilySearch so you can immediately conduct the search for your ancestors. You can easily identify an Historical Record article in the wiki because of the banner that appears at the top of every Historical Record article. For example:
This article describes a collection of historical records available at FamilySearch.org.


Worldwide Indexing

  • Pages in the wiki are created for indexing projects. Sometimes the current status of the project is noted on the wiki page. See FamilySearch Indexing: US, Texas-Birth Records, 1903-1934 as an example.
  • Indexing articles in the Wiki are easily identified with a banner that includes links to the indexing project. Within the banner you will see a link to the indexing site where you can begin participating.
This article contains instructions for indexing a collection of records online for FamilySearch.
Help index these records: http://indexing.familysearch.org
Access and search completed indexes: Historical Record Collections

English Wiki Links to Spanish Wiki

  • The ability to link an English wiki article to the corresponding article that resides in one of the language wiki's is a multi-language community effort. If you can read and translate in other languages, you could support the wiki by translating articles and adding the content to one of the other wikis.
  • For example, see the Peru page in the English wiki. At the bottom of the page you will see a link to the corresponding page for Perú in the Spanish Wiki.
  • Currently, all inter-wiki links to other languages exist at the bottom of the page. If you do not see a link to another language, then you know that the page has not been translated.
  • Note that the Spanish wiki does not yet have the inter-wiki links to the English wiki.

Finding Your Way Around the Wiki

Basic Navigation

  • Views
  • Toolbox
  • Community (the hidden feature!)
  • Personal tools

Search and Browse


Self-Help

How to ...
Edit
Basic editing
Simple edits
Editing tool
Advanced editing
Links
Using Rich Editor
Internal links
External links
Advanced linking
Pages
Naming
Moving (renaming)
Deleting
Redirects
Style guide
Formatting
Wiki markup
Wikitext cheatsheet
Collaborate
User page
Talk pages
Updates
Tracking changes
Recent changes
Watchlist
Images
Selecting images
Uploading
Getting approved
Adding to articles
Tables
Advanced tables
Spreadsheets
Categories
Categorization
Advanced
categorization
Templates
Quick guide
Advanced templates

Learn the Basics

Learn How to Edit and Contribute

  1. Basic Search
  2. Advanced Search
  3. Basic Editing
  4. Creating Links
  5. Adding Images
  6. Creating a New Page

Help From Others

Online Community Meetings:

  • New Wiki Users
  • Experienced Genealogist
  • Wiki Contributors
  • Technical Meeting
  • Project Meetings

FamilySearch Forums:

  • Research Advice for Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Oceania, United Kingdom and Ireland
  • FamilySearch Support for FamilySearch.org, Historical Records Collections, Indexing, new FamilySearch, Wiki, Family History Centers, and Forums Feedback and Help.

Others:


Authoring in the Wiki

User Pages

  • Connect with the community through your own user page. See examples of how other wiki contributors are connecting with others in the community through their user page and their user discussion page:
Laraleepn
JamesAnderson
Lembley
Cottrells
RitcheyMT
Fran
VasquezJL

Learn Through Experience

By adding some basic content to your own user page, you will learn:

  1. How to submit images for approval
  2. How to add a photo to a wiki page
  3. How to create section headings on a wiki page
  4. How to use templates
  5. How to create internal wiki links
  6. How to create external wiki links

Content ideas for your user page

  • Add a short biography
  • Add a photo
  • Add user boxes (share more about yourself through these visual badges). See a gallery of user boxes you can add to your page and the help page for instructions.
  • Add links to the WikiProjects you are working on
  • Add links to your Wiki Subpages
  • Your own pedigree chart

Related articles


 

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