FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah

Wiki community members—like YOU, Utah Genealogical Association (UGA), and a few members of US/Canada Reference at the Family History Library will work together to improve the Utah-related pages on the FamilySearch Wiki from November 2011 through TBD 2012 to help educate genealogists how to find ancestors who lived part of their lives in Utah. We hope you'll be part of the project to help untold numbers of future users!

Overall Objectives
The purpose of the Utah FamilySearch Wiki is to help readers find and use Utah records for genealogy and family history. The objective of this project is to improve or create the following Utah-related Wiki pages:


 * Utah main page
 * Statewide topic pages, such as Vital Records
 * County pages, such as Beaver County
 * Other Utah-related pages

Guiding Principles

 * Identify important and relevant items. Include enough to really help. Do not link to every website or list every publication, since it may bury, rather than highlight, what is important.


 * Tell readers what to expect when they follow a link or search a suggested record.


 * Create content for Utah Wiki pages with a balance of these four factors in mind:


 * a. Genealogical Value. Help Wiki users further their research.
 * b. Clarity. Make sure everyone understands your meaning and the purpose of your words.
 * c. Brevity. Be succinct as possible without sacrificing purpose or clarity.
 * d. Documentation. Use footnote(s) to identify the source(s) of the content you are creating.

First Focus
Most of the basic content will be added by people like you, through training and step-by-step tasks that identify what to add. Additional content will be added by project participants and by the genealogical community at large.

The first focus of this project to add basic content valuable to Wiki users to every Utah county page. This includes:


 * Links to online resources, such as indexes and/or images of records or tips on how to use those records.
 * Local repositories (libraries, archives, museums) and the records and resources they may have.
 * Links to sites that may reveal additional records and resources or make them more available to users. This includes links to the Family History Library catalog, Google books, and WorldCat among others.
 * Parent counties, neighboring counties, any record loss, brief history, and more. (Most of this is already accomplished for Utah counties.)

Model Style Page of a Utah County
NOTE: Currently the style is on the Discussion page for the county. Will be transferred to the county page when approved.AdkinsWH 22:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

See Beaver County.

Specific plans
The following plans describe what needs to be accomplished for the Utah WikiProject. Each plan has step-by-step instructions to accomplish it.

Plans ready for volunteers

 * County History List by year historical events that affected the records and the record-keeping in each county, such as settlement and migration, or natural events, such as flooding, drought, or fires.
 * County GenWeb Links Link to databases on county GenWeb databases, with information to help users decide to click or not.

Plans not yet ready
These are not yet ready, but you may want to know what is on the horizon.


 * Cemeteries in the counties Find-A-Grave and other websites that can be linked specifically to the counties.
 * Links to catalogs This plan allows only the best items to be highlighted in the Wiki while informing users of other records or resources that are available. This also makes it so the Wiki won't have to be updated each time new things are added to the sites included.
 * Newspapers by county
 * Repositories in the county: libraries, museums, etc. Phase 1: Add contact information for local libraries, societies, and other record holders in each county.
 * State repositories: Utah State Archives, DUP, SUP, State Historical Society, state libraries, etc.
 * Church records Phase 1.
 * Major websites: statewide and county-by-county.
 * Migration: Railroad, trails, etc.

If you have additional ideas, please add them to this list and sign it by adding 4 tildes ( ~ )

What's completed

 * County Courthouse Find uncopyrighted images of the courthouse (historical or current) and upload them. List their contact information (address, phone, email), including a link to website, addresses, etc.

Schedule
2011 12 October Show and tell and brainstorm with US/Canada Consultants and Utah moderators 15 October show and tell WikiProject Utah to Logan Family History conference. Begin recruiting, set up training.

TBD 2011 initial Project Utah meeting to:


 * select future meeting times
 * approve a Wiki site for Project Utah meeting agenda and minutes
 * approve a tentative Project Utah schedule
 * approve or begin approving proposed project rules
 * approve or begin approving a proposed project model county style page


 * In subsequent meetings finish any business from above, and:


 * adopt the existing task list for modification, or create a proposed alternative task list
 * approve a project completion measuring tool (possibly modeled after the one for Illinois)

2012 1 Jan Much planned content in Utah counties is completed. Utah treasure hunt begins. 31 Mar treasure hunt contest for Utah ends. TBD WikiProject Utah ends.

Progress Chart
See WikiProject Utah Progress Chart.

Participants
List of participants of FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah:

We ask that each participant paste the following code on their user page:



Next Scheduled Meeting

 * Next meeting: 26 Oct 2011, 9 a.m. FHL 3rd floor glass meeting room. Dawne Hole, Marilyn Markham, Patsy Hendrickson, and Wilma Adkins.
 * Format: MeetingPlace Meetings ID ????. Click to Attend or Dial in Number: 801-240-2663. MeetingPlace ID ????.


 * Contact User:HoleDL telephone 801-240-4093 for details.

Meeting Agendas

 * 26 Oct 2011

Meeting Minutes

 * 19 Oct 2011
 * 12 Oct 2011

Project Guidelines
The following guidlines will be followed by the WikiProject Utah members until end of the project, tentatively scheduled for TBD 2012.

Vetted content
Before you add similar words to more than one Utah Wiki page, your words must be vetted and approved by any two other team members who are guided by rule #1 and agree with you on that way of presenting it.

Style
The first few weeks of the Utah project we will agree on a model style, and create at least one example page of it. To keep the project moving forward, NO style changes nor further discussion of changes will be allowed after that for the remainder of the project (tentatively until TBD 2012). Participants are expected to follow that style during the project.

Style includes but is not limited to:


 * Use of standard Utah templates
 * Headings (anything that would appear in a table of contents) match with FHL Catalog subject headings as much as possible Example: Beaver County, Utah
 * Heading levels: use levels three, four or five; avoid levels one and two
 * Order of presentation
 * Table of contents style or position (or lack of TOC)
 * image, table, or template positions or size; prefer sharp images relevant to the topic on the page
 * font
 * bold
 * italic for titles of published books
 * underline
 * indentation
 * bullets. Items under headings on county pages will be bulleted lists. Information describing the headings themselves will not be bulleted.
 * numbering
 * citations in footnote style
 * Please use the full Chicago Manual of Style footnote style (modified):


 * Author(s), followed by a comma
 * Title (book titles in italics)
 * Publication data in parenthesis:
 * - Publication place, followed by a colon
 * - Publisher
 * - Year of publication
 * - comma, and the the page number(s) followed by a period
 * Access information:
 * - link to free online copy, if any. IF a free online copy is available no further access data needs to be added.
 * - IF NO free online edition is available, then add:
 * - WorldCat template:.
 * - FHL template:.
 * - Brief annotation explaining the content, or why, or how a reader would want to use the source.


 * image, table, or template style
 * internal link style
 * external link style including brief annotation. Prefer http:// links over https:// links.

Wording changes
Before changing the saved wording of another team member who followed these rules you must get their consent (except for obvious minor typos).

Links with purpose
The Wiki is not a links repository. It uses links to support the genealogical educational purpose of a page or section of a page. Show and explain links with an educational purpose in mind. Annotate each external link briefly but well enough for the reader to realize what they will be getting if they click that link.

Seek out local and unique
Seek out local and unique genealogical search strategies, records, or repositories and explain them to readers.

Describe each edit
Describe each edit in theSummaryfield before clicking the Savebutton.

Non-compliance
Non-compliance will result in work being reverted, or changed to follow these rules.

Templates
It has been decided to use templates for wording that will be used over and over in county, town, or other pages. This will allow changes to be made across all pages simultaneously.

If you wish to edit an existing template page, please post your proposed changes to the discussion page for that template before making changes. Please place a watch on templates you have written or edited. If no responses within 1 week, contact the team member(s) who created the original.

Before creating a template, click on the what templates already exist.

To create a new template that will be used on several pages for the Utah WikiProject:

1. Create a new page with the following name: Template:UtahCo[record type] 2. Type the text for your template. Make sure that all concepts, sentence structure, and grammar are independent and can stand on their own if need be. 3. Add the category to the new template page using the following wikitext:. (Be sure to include the . Otherwise the category will also appear on all pages that merely have the template placed on them.) 4. Approve the wording with administrators of the Utah WikiProject Team. 5. Add the template to county pages using Otherwise those pages will be added to the category Templates for Utah project.

To see a list of current existing templates for this project, click the category below "Templates for Utah project."