FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Creating County Beginning Dates Tables

Current Projects page Creating Beginning Dates for County Records Table

Purpose
The purpose of this project is to add Beginning Date tables to county pages. .

Contact
Jane Colmenares

Tasks Page
Task Page

Instructions
Video Instructions for this project

1. Go to the Task Page and sign up for a state.

2. Go to the state you chose and use the list of county pages provided on the state page to visit each county.

3. In the first county, edit the page and go to Wikitext.

4. Copy and paste the following and place it just above the first heading and after the infobox on the county page.

=== County Information ===

5. Next, copy and paste the following directly below the heading you just added. ==== [add county name] Record Dates ====

6. Replace the brackets and "add county name" with the name of your county. Example: ==== Davidson County, Tennessee Record Dates  ====

7. Add the following table in wikitext directly below the heading you added in step 6.

{| width="100%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" border="1"  |-   | width="100%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" colspan="6" |   Beginning Dates for Major County Records   |-   | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Birth  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Marriage  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Death  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Census   | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Land   | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Probate   |-   | width="16.6%" align="center" |    | width="16.6%" align="center" |    | width="16.6%" align="center" |    | width="16.6%" align="center" |    | width="16.6%" align="center" |    | width="16.6%" align="center" |   |}

8. Add the name of the county page to each of the brackets just before the # sign in the table you just pasted onto the page. This will add a link to each topic on the county page.

Example for Davidson County, Tennessee: | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Birth  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Marriage  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Death  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Census | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Land  | width="16.6%" bgcolor="#e4d8e5" align="center" | Probate

9. Go to the bottom of the page and type in "added table" to the edit summary box and save the page.

10. Go back to the table and click on each of those links to see if they work. Each link should go to the heading listed lower on the page. For example, if you click on the Birth link on the table, it should jump down to the heading Birth down at the bottom of the page under Vital Records.

11. If all the links works, go to the next step. IF A LINK IS BROKEN: Determine why the link is broken by examining the link to see if the code is correct. For instance, in this example the link for the Birth records is: Birth. However, when you go to the bottom of the county page you will see that the correct heading is really: Adams County, Indiana#Birth Records. Add the word "Records" to the link and save the page.



12. Once the links work, you will add the years each record type began in the county. The dates you will use are found on another website.

13. Go to WeRelate.org place search.

14. Type in the name of the county in the "Place name" field. Put the state for the county in the "Located in" field. For this example, it will be Davidson County, Tennessee. Click on "Search" and you will see a list of results.



15. Click on the link for the county.

16. Find the Timeline on the county page and look for each date that will go on the table you just created. If a year is missing for a record type, leave the cell blank on the table. For Davidson County, Tennessee, the dates needed are underlined in the below example. Notice there is not date for when Deaths first started in the county.



17. Return to your county wiki page and click on Edit.

18. While still in Rich Text (DO NOT GO TO WIKI TEXT), add the dates to the appropriate fields.



19. Go to the bottom of the page and type in "added dates to table" to the edit summary box and save the page.

20. If dates for birth, marriage, death, land, probate, or census are missing from the Timeline, go back to the Task Page and edit the page. Add to the "Missing Dates" fields the type of date missing. For this example, the year death records started in Davidson County is missing from the Timeline. Add "Death" to the table and save the page.

21. Once you have checked the table to make sure the dates are in the correct fields, move on to the next county.

Example of completed table:



22. After you have done each state, go back to the Task Page and put in the date you completed the project.

FOR NEW YORK COUNTIES ONLY
Please place the ==== [add county name] Record Dates ====  heading and table directly below "[NAME OF COUNTY] County New York Historical Facts" heading, which should be directly under the table of contents.