FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Professional Genealogists

Purpose
This is a project to help FamilySearch patrons find professional genealogists they can hire to help them find their ancestors. Professional genealogists can list themselves on FamilySearch Wiki for free.

Why promote professional genealogists on the wiki?
One purpose of FamilySearch Wiki is to help patrons find the records of their ancestors. The wiki already contains tens of thousands of links to digitized records that require an access fee. Linking to professional researchers that can provide similar records is no more commercial than linking to fee-based records, and gives the patron one more way to access his ancestors' information.

Step 1: Obtain Editing Rights on the Wiki
1. You must have a FamilySearch account to request edit rights on the Wiki. You can create a free FamilySearch account here. 2. Once you have your free account, visit the FamilySearch Research Wiki. 3. While on the Wiki, sign in using the link in the top right corner of the page. 4. Once you have done that, you can now request edit rights, using this form. We will get back to you within 2 business days letting you know you have editing rights.

Step 2: Create your user page
Once you have editing rights, do the following: 1. Go to the Wiki main page and log in to FamilySearch.org. 2. Your username will appear in the top right corner and will be a red link. Click on this link. 3. This will open your user page, if you already have one. You can then, click on Edit or Edit source and add content to the page. 4. If you have not yet created your user page, the edit screen will appear and you edit the page.
 * For instructions on how to edit in VisualEditor, go to the Wiki University.
 * For instructions on how to edit in Edit source, go to the Wiki University.

5. Add some information about yourself to your user page.

Most wiki contributors add to their user pages information about their background and about projects they are doing on the wiki. But the idea behind this project is for each professional genealogist to add to his user page the sort of information that might help a patron decide whether they'd like to hire him. This may include the following information:


 * Genealogical education
 * Professional and volunteer experience
 * Credentials
 * Specialties
 * Business license
 * Services Rates
 * Contact information

Many professionals also like to display longer items such as samples of client reports, research plans, or customer testimonials. Adding these to a user page would make it too long, but they can be added as sub-pages and linked from the user page. For help in creating sub-pages, see Help:Subpages or contact the FamilySearch Help Desk.

Adding Information Appropriately on the Wiki
You can now add yourself to a list of professional genealogists for a specific locality. The list of all localities can be found here: Professional Genealogists. Please follow these guidelines:
 * Add information about yourself. Describe your services using the headings on each column. You will notice they are sortable columns.
 * Add to the bottom of the list. When adding your contact information to a page, put your name at the bottom of the list. Do not put yourself at the top.  This is a first come, first serve situation.
 * Use language reflecting Neutral Point of View. A wiki page's language shouldn't read like the script of a used car salesman or a Sham-Wow ad. State the facts -- only the facts.
 * When linking a wiki page to a web page outside the wiki, do it once. It's okay to add multiple links from a wiki page to various unique pages on another site if each of those pages lends value to the reader of the wiki article. However, if multiple links from a wiki page led to a single page on another site, the links would be redundant, and would usually constitute link spamming.
 * Don't add listings or links of individual researchers to Wiki topic pages. They will be removed and you will be blocked from adding content to the Wiki.
 * Do not remove other genealogists listed on the page. If you do so, you will be blocked from adding content to the Wiki and your information will be removed.
 * Don't use FamilySearch copyrighted materials or images in pages you make to promote your business. If you do so, you will be blocked from adding content to the Wiki and your information will be removed.