FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Washington

Overall Objectives
The first purpose of the Washington Wiki project is to get good, basic information on each of the county pages. The Wiki needs to help readers find and use Washington resources to support correct connections in their family tree.

The second purpose of the project is to enlist contributors who will advise the project and will deepen and maintain the pages after the "jump start" the project provides.

We want people to like the Wiki, to use it, and to make it better.

The project will update and simplify these Wiki pages:
 * Washington county pages. Examples: Pierce and Okanogan counties
 * Washington main page.
 * Statewide topic pages. Example Vital Records
 * Other Washington-related pages

Guiding Principles
The project is guided by these principles for both immediate and lasting value to users of and contributors to the Washington wiki pages.
 * Provide information that quickly guides users to the correct records of their ancestors.
 * Increase clarity and understanding of records, links, research methods, and what to do with the information found. (Can link them to the Research Process page(s))
 * Give them enough information to decide whether to follow a link or not.
 * Create an inviting look that reinforces or enhances the information provided.
 * Call attention to obscure records (Add stars or a tip).
 * Promote good sourcing and correct connections for submission to family tree databases, such as FamilySearch Family Tree, Ancestry.com, One Great Family, and others.


 * 2. Help beginners without getting in the way of experts.


 * 3. Encourage and promote a sense of fulfillment for all contributors and advisors as they:
 * Add lasting content that will help many people.
 * Give ideas of what/how to contribute
 * Get training to use WikiText (in varying degrees) and to follow patterns

Spread the word
If they don't know about it, they won't use it, and these principles don't make any difference. But if we have good content and satisfaction, word of mouth if not more will help. Social media, Yammer, FaceBook, Twitter, Google
 * Some (C:/1 My Default Area/1 Washington Wiki/Social Media Contacts) Washington FHC workers have been found on Yammer

Project Guidelines
During the project, specific tasks will be claimed by team members and other contributors. "Basic training" will be given for those wanting easy tasks. As comfort levels increase, tasks with some increase of difficulty will be available. The most difficult tasks will be by assignment.

Guidelines for adding content to the wiki:
 * Highlight and list important and relevant items. Long lists would bury, rather than highlight, what's important.


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


 * Balance wiki content with these four factors in mind:


 * a. Genealogical Value. Does this 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.

On the county pages, the purpose of the topics is to help users know how these records can help in their research. This includes:
 * Intro paragraphs: These are "templates" or form paragraphs that explain:
 * Dates of the records: This tells people whether those records existed when their ancestor(s) lived there.
 * Contents of the records: This helps people know if the records have the information they need.
 * Where the original records are stored.


 * Specific records for the topic are mentioned using bullet lists and include:
 * Links to online resources for a county, such as indexes or images of records, tips, and history. Include only links that go directly to results for the county.
 * For a few topics, Links to catalogs such as the Google books, WorldCat, Family History Library Catalog, among others, are appropriate. Again, these go directly to that county—no general links.

For more style and guidelines for the Washington Wiki Project.

Phase 1: Gather the data

 * (Ready) Gather the newspapers, county by county from Chronicling America
 * Instructions are in the Excel file WA Newspapers under the WA Gathering tab at the bottom.

Phase 2: Prep the Newspapers page for counties

 * (Ready) On each County page:
 * A) Navigate to the "Newspapers" heading.
 * In WikiText, place the cursor below the Newspapers heading and ABOVE the "{{WA Newspaper abstracts...." template.
 * Copy the following (include the asterisk "*") to create a link to an empty page.


 * *{{PAGENAME}} Newspapers (Sortable by towns, years, and titles)


 * Summarize: "Newspapers" and Save Page
 * Click the red link to the empty page


 * B) On the newly-created empty page, paste (Ctrl + V) the shell
 * The shell is found in WA Newspapers Shell.
 * (Ctrl + A to highlight the entire shell, then Ctrl + C to copy)


 * Summarize: "Pasted shell" then Save Page


 * C) Adapt the shell to the county
 * Breadcrumb: ___ County: You add the county name (2 places on the breadcrumb)
 * Category: ___ County: You add the county name (only once)


 * D) Do steps A - C until all counties have a shell

Phase 3: Manipulate the data
This step will translate everything into WikiText so it will go into the sortable table and so we don't have to do it manually.


 * A) Check for stray towns on each county's Excel page
 * Why? Chronicling America lists some towns as well as counties under the "Counties" search. The gathering process did NOT catch these.
 * 1) Look at the numbers on the county list: some will have two "1."s or have a "1." at the end of the list.
 * When that occurs, verify the county for the town where the newspaper was published. Move that entry to the bottom of the list for the correct county.
 * 2)Track this task. 10 lines below the end of the list on a county, type "Checked for strays" and your initials. This statement is needed regardless of whether changes were made or not.


 * B) Search/Replace on each county's Excel page
 * Why? Chronicling America used some characters that will confuse our WikiText.
 * 1) Search/Replace (Ctrl + H)  Search for  [     Replace with   (
 * 2) Search for  ]    Replace with    )
 * 3) Track this task. Type "Replaced [  and ]" under the line "Checked for strays"


 * C) Ready, but Wilma will train specific people for this task. Perhaps the young missionaries?

Phase 4: Paste to the sortable table

 * Copy the newspaper info to the table on the county newspaper shell

Phase 5: Identify online newspapers

 * (Not ready) Identify online copies of newspapers from well-known sites.

Items for Wilma

 * County Histories: rewrite the intro template; adapt from Utah pages
 * US GenWeb Church, Tax, Newspapers
 * Other repositories template?. Revise?
 * Church recs Intro

Libraries
Purpose: Help users by providing contact information and ideas of what the libraries may have that will help them with family history and genealogy. Task - For each county:
 * 1) Cut and paste the template WALibraries Intro under the Libraries heading


 * 2) Copy the libraries for this county from the Excel file labeled Tasks Libraries


 * 3) For each library, add the "Online Resources" and "Unique Collections" lines
 * a) Use Aberdeen Timberland Library for your example.
 * b) If all of the libraries use the same web site, use Okanogan County as your example


 * 4) Explore their site, and indicate if the library has Online Resources, such as Ancestry.com and Heritage Quest.

Post FamilySearch Collections to County Pages
Gbo started this 9/25/13. Wilma's instructions were inadequate for browse image collections.

Browse Image Collections
 * 1) Click "Browse Images"
 * 2) Click on the first county listed. This is the URL that gets pasted into the county page.
 * 3) Under each topic listed
 * a) Create a link to the URL (space) list the years and specific records*, then end the link. (*Example, under Naturalization records, are these Petitions or Declarations of Intent?.)
 * b) Identify this as a FamilySearch Historical Collection (Browse images).
 * 4) Go to the next topic listed for that county and repeat.
 * 5) Back up to the list of counties in this collection, and repeat for each county.

Tasks in planning

 * Add dates to major records table (under the County Overview heading). See task description
 * Add formation date and sentence to the SEO
 * Then make sure "above the fold" is consistent, will not a lot of wasted space before the Contents and Online Records banner


 * Scour Washington State Archives for items to post to 1) county pages, 2) WA topic pages, or 3) WA online collections page. See |task description


 * Scour Ancestry.com for items to post to 1) county pages or 2) WA topic pages or 3) WA online collections page. See task description


 * FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Washington Tasks-|task description]]


 * FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Washington Tasks-|task description]]


 * Probate and Land Records Tasks: Skills: High genealogical experience, Wikitext to create the "Contents" table for these topics.
 * Decide with those in Washington and the team if we need to do the following, or will that which was scoured from FamilySearch HRC's, from Ancestry, and from WA state archives and libraries enough?
 * Include what records are available, time period the record covers and how they can be accessed including links to databases, images and references to books and microfilm and information to repositories.


 * Newspapers and Obituaries Task: Pattern somewhat after Utah. Be sure to add Chronicling America to the list.


 * County Histories: list of county histories available with links to online books and references to libraries
 * Histories intro - rewrite?
 * Find at least one online history (Ancestry? WA archives?, Google Books, worldCat?, Internet Archive?)


 * Cemetery Records Task: (Difficulty level 3. People trained specifically for this task) 1) Link to major cemetery websites that contain cemetery transcriptions for the county; 2) Copy the colored table; 3) Adapt the websites to current county; 4) Check the links


 * Vital Records: include what records are available, time period the record covers and how they can be accessed including links to databases, images and references to books and microfilm and information to repositories.


 * Washington Wiki Project Tasks (to rewrite)

Before beginning any tasks please review the Washington Project guidelines.

FIRST TIME WIKI USERS: For instructions on how to edit the wiki use the following:


 * Online and Video Instructions
 * Editing on the Wiki written instructions

The following are tasks to be accomplished for the Washington Wiki Project. Each task has step-by-step instructions to accomplish it. '''SOME TASKS ARE NOT YET COMPLETED. WHEN TASKS ARE LINKED (typed in blue) THEY ARE READY FOR PARTICIPANTS TO WORK ON THEM.'''


 * Task Difficulty Tasks are rated for difficulty. Within each phase task table look for 1, 2, or 3, with 1 being the least difficult and 3 being the most difficult.

Verify neighboring counties.
 * Background and Repositories Tasks


 * Vital Records Tasks


 * Probate and Land Records Tasks

Clickable neighboring counties
Joy is in process with this. She may do the difficult image portion and teach others to do the easier "clickable" portion. Completed 9/25/13 This had a huge learning curve, very high time commitment, and VERY helpful for users. Thanks Wyzer17!

Create the History Timeline
Timeline for each county. See task description Completed by gbo17 on 9/25/13 Excellent! A yeoman's job!

Identify Family History Centers
in (or near) each county. Add the template WA1) Create a link (if not already there) and click to the Wiki page for each center. Then add contact information and hours, if not already there. 2) On the county page, indicate if they have the FHC Portal. 2a) If none in this county have the Portal, identify the nearest Center (or library) OUT of this county that does have it. See task description This task was completed 9/25/13 by ClaudiaJ64. Good job!

Images of the county
Have been added to the top of each county page by ClaudiaJ64. (Thanks, Sister Heaston) Awesome pics, time-consuming. Very inviting!

County headings
Make counties consistent. Done by Wyzer17 Aug 20, 2013. (Big job. Thanks, Joy)

Other tasks completed

 * Huge maps have been placed under the Maps heading. Please put those into templates and make them a more viewable size. Done by Wyzer17 Aug 20, 2013.
 * a. Add a caption to the images. Done by Claudiaj64


 * Cut and paste tasks - topic intro templates. Done by Wyzer17


 * Boundary change links and History timeline prep. Done by Wyzer17 and Gbo17 (These instructions took longer than the task itself)
 * [See Discussion page for instructions that never made it to an actual project page. 1) Copy the text, 2) use Wikitext when pasting, and 3) change the county name.]
 * Step 1A. Copy the following immediately below the Boundary Changes heading on each county, then adapt ADAMS to the current county. This link gives a timeline of boundary changes for the county, and will be valuable to users.
 * Historical County Boundaries from Newberry Library
 * Step 1B. Copy and adapt the same link immediately below the "History Timeline" heading on each county.
 * Step 2. Copy the following below the link adapted in Step 1B, then adapt the essay #, author and county from History Link for Washington counties. This sets up that section so someone else can actually create the history timeline for that county.
 * Emphasis for this timeline is on events that affected migration, records, or record-keeping. Unless otherwise mentioned, the events below were gleaned from Wilma, David. Okanogan County -- Thumbnail History, History Link.org Essay 7608.

Schedule
Beginning 1st Quarter 2013; Completed Oct 31, 2013

Examples of Washington County Page
Note: The sample county started out as Adams when Marilyn Markham was using the FamilySearch Library missionaries, but became the Okanogan page when the Wiki Content team took over.

Adams County; Okanogan County

Registration
If you are interested in participating in the Washington Wiki Project, click here to register as an Washington FamilySearch Wiki Project Volunteer. As soon as you are registered, you may begin to add information to any of the tasks typed in blue in the tables above.

Community Meetings
To be determined

Online meetings with focus on Wiki pages for Washington.


 * Share ideas, suggest improvements
 * Get news and progress reports.

Attend from home, at a library, or wherever you have an internet connection and a telephone.

Current Meetings
None are scheduled at this time.