FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah Project leaders meeting

Attend the meeting - a continuation of the group meetings.

21 Nov 201
Prayer: Liz Jana: beginners corner first Wilma: Contact Joy for uploading images; finish task descrs for Church. Liz: Cemeteries and give Wilma a couple to help with. Then next week? we can start posting to the counties.
 * Church records experience
 * County pages, have a website area: enables people to search beyond what has been gathered. Point to wiki pages already describing some of the sites and methods.
 * How can we put it where it won't be buried? Intro comments, here are more websites, many of the collections these sites have may already be referenced under specific topics on this page. Check this out, see what you can learn.
 * This is high priority - higher than FS Historical, rather than moving on to USGenWeb or other sites.

7 Nov 2012
Prayer: Jana

Discussions:
 * What will move this project toward completion quickly?
 * We three do many of the tasks
 * Templates for topic blurbs (include link to state topic page)
 * Jana will explore other sites for online items
 * Some mixed up - court including court, land under probate, etc. Not easy to navigate some. It will be good for them to get direction.
 * Digital collections: shall we also be sure each of these is under the county page?
 * Much to present if we want to be thorough
 * Many of the FamilySearch digital collections link right to descriptions.
 * Jana will: Post on county if for that county. For others, go on the state page. For those state ones that should also go the county, let's make a template.
 * Prep templates that do not require adaptation for all topics, and paste all to one county, then next county.
 * Wilma will: template for Cemeteries - Beaver County. Teach Liz to make templates for the other counties.
 * Liz will do cemeteries and adapt to counties
 * Wilma will: start templates that don't need adapting for topics we won't actually cover in the project.


 * Professional genealogists

Concepts started:
 * Beginners corner: Frustration with the copyright thing for images. Stuck for now. Can't go forward until tables are back, etc.
 * "Core pages" How to find birth information in Utah/US, How to find genealogical records, etc.

Topics: County and State

24 Oct 2012
Prayer: Wilma
 * We needed to review the purpose, to keep us encouraged and to get refocused.
 * Births: Liz will start at the end Weber and move backward. Wilma will continue Sanpete on
 * Beginners corner: Some images asking for uploading. Tables don't work which takes away from the drive so can't proceed until she knows if things are the software or other. Did a lot of playing with images.
 * Would like to finish the project by: we need to wrap up - decide what is most important, and do it. What if we had to by at least 1 week before Christmas.
 * Each Record type: what is sufficient for the minor ones?
 * Layers of development
 * Utah project: Link to FHLC, And link to the State page. Review every topic to see if something should not be overlooked; Tasks: HRC collections, Ancestry collections; county scope and value comment; Seek feet on the ground contacts for each county (watch, add, enlist help) glean from existing groups;
 * Level 2 id's key resources: for EVERY topic. Obscure is more for after project.
 * Level 3 soft teaching -- may not be done on other record types
 * Balance of how deep on Utah and how weak other states are
 * FS HRC's -- someone should be updating, cross linking to the state/county

17 Oct 2012
Prayer: Liz Purpose and future of the Wiki: addressed in main meeting. Still feel bad that we're dismissing how the youth feel about the wiki. But it's not advantageous to keep going over the same things in our meetings. *Did not resolve the problem about future use. Move forward and work on the pages, and hopefully it will be resolved in the future.
 * Need a bridge between wiki and all the interactive stuff. They are having a good time, being successful. *They need an academic resource. Wiki highly intelligent, academic resource. Didn't like history in school -- but when I had to solve an ancestor's problem, history came alive for me. Even citations: what a great purpose. It will be natural for the youth to not like the academics at first, but it will become that needed bridge.
 * Must keep in the back of our minds that the youth of today will be using it in the future. Help to change their hearts AND inspires us on how to make it more useful for them.

Births: Get those finished. Wilma will help from S to end. Liz did those with online indexes. Liz will start at beginning of alpha. Wilma will do SL. They have an online index. Also HRC's. Overlaps - is the source the state archives copy? Sanpete has index and images online.

Vision for the "Beginner's Corner" stuff the community meeting asked of us.
 * Document image: callouts, help people see contents, understand their value, how to use.
 * Helping others with their purpose
 * Where do the links lead? Let each state choose. Will be some US stuff on it.
 * Group effort on the links. But which graphics are something Jana is especially skilled in doing.

A matter of prayer. Maybe we haven't reached the summit to see the perspective. Utah committee appreciated, we like the diversity, the learning.

Better for all of us to do both meetings on Wednesdays.

10 Oct 2012
Liz and Wilma re: discouragement and less activity. May be because of the problems with the Wiki. Now that they are resolved, let's assess next week. Pray to see what can get the fire burning again. Next meeting: address Jana's issues -- purpose of and future of the Wiki. We will see a huge difference in the next 5 years of people doing genealogy. Youth. Maybe what we are building in the wiki is not usable for them and the way they work.

3 Oct 2012
Prayer: Jana Agenda: Church records -- resolved in the earlier meeting FHLC links Beginner's corner--question: many beginners would never think they are a beginner Tasks nearly ready? Births Can do the beginning of next week Strategies
 * Create a paragraph or page that tells value: listing books or resources. Then tell them ways they can find it online or at a library near them
 * Addressing books and alternative ways: also microfilm, might be able to order to Center or state or university: ILL, etc. Purchase, etc.
 * grateful for opinions: cause us to reexamine what we thought was good.
 * Not everyone is completely sold on the soft teaching idea. Skilled researchers may not like it.
 * Contributor of email: what would you suggest?
 * Need photographic material with which I can work: death suggestion
 * Another idea: tombstone with will, death certificate, combined into one image
 * Shall we just do, even if we have to redo.
 * Get something ready: Find online maps of the county (animaps),
 * online published histories: Centennial histories
 * cemeteries

25 Sept 2012
Report of UGA Fall Conference:
 * They both attended conference, some of the same classes. If you have purchased a certificate from England, you can publish it, but others cannot use it as a legal document.
 * didn't get many volunteers, last count on survey 8 responses were Liz's changes.
 * About 1/2 of the handouts were given, had a lot of good responses on Friday, but on Saturday, gave hardly any away
 * as of this morning, no one has filled out the survey. There were so many handouts, it's going to take people a couple of days to review them.
 * No ancestors in Utah, those who were interested were already doing a wiki project - Civil War No emails either. There were a lot of missionaries there - maybe they already have an assigned project.
 * Future conferences: was this worth it? Unless we get at least 7 nibbles, it's not worth doing the flyers nor doing the conference for recruits. This conference was for less involved, less serious genealogists, more beginners
 * They need more of an exposure to the wiki, rather than a help us with it.
 * A learning experience
 * UGA gave away a computer, so did Legacy.
 * Most of the prizes did not make people want to help
 * Jana lost her audio, so we don't have her ideas.
 * Had to come to our table to get their prize drawing thing signed.

Recruiting ideas:
 * Utah familysearch centers
 * UGA website - Liz learned about it
 * ICAPGen conference - 19-20 October. No wiki class.
 * If a conference again, just have them inserted into the packet for registrants
 * Can still have a booth and talk to people
 * Try at SLIG
 * RootsTech
 * Historical/genealogical/DUP's/museums in areas (get DUP contact info from international website)
 * Librarians may know of the above

Flyer:
 * Tweek to flyer: Needs Utah Genealogical Association on it, since they sponsor the prizes. (Noticed only after the conference was over, of course) Also FamilySearch Logo (Can we do this? Wilma find out) UGA logo also the UGA adoption logo
 * So much information given in easy to understand pieces. Too bad MediaWiki software doesn't allow for "thought clusters" around the page.

Prep for meeting tomorrow:
 * Births - ongoing. Early years have been completed by Lois. Later years in process. (Liz)
 * Utah for beginners (Jana) Link in the chat.
 * County level Church Records
 * Other

18 Sept 2012
Flyer discussion, tweeks Fall conference

11 Sept 2012
Nuts and bolts


 * Poll for policy guidelines
 * Cancel next week.
 * Plan tomorrow's meeting (60 minutes)
 * Utah page report or discussion? (5 minutes) Then possibly after James there will be time to open for questions which may entail both pages anyway. Jana to share?
 * How to find birth records in US / Utah? (10 minutes)
 * Coordinate w/Utah page, since it will likely feed to it.
 * Let him report - limit the time. He may ask for feedback. We can place our feedback on his talk page or email.
 * Births report - How many counties are done
 * Church records report or discussion? (15 minutes)
 * Handout for UGA conference in Sandy next week
 * Jana will create it (she has a MAC)
 * Training could be offered in this meeting in October (Wilma will be in FamilyTree training)
 * How many to print? Any ideas? Wilma check registration.
 * Cost reimbursed by Wilma and will be reimbursed by UGA
 * Funeral homes, public libraries, church records, local museums

Check the topic you are interested in.


 * Which county(s) or city(s) do you prefer to work with? Fill in blank
 * What do we want them to do? 1) List the libraries, churches, etc., 2) link to website and catalog, 3) learn unique holdings?, 3) Utah or a county room or section?
 * Turning in their papers? Contacting us?
 * Form they will fill out and return it -- or contact info (new gmail account. UtahWikiProject (user name) password: ProjectLeaders2012 Liz will set it up.
 * Their skill levels
 * Constructive use of their time
 * Do they want to 2) gather by phone, 3) in person, or only on the 1) Internet
 * Contact info -- theirs and ours
 * Inviting and interesting (help!) I can make a difference and I can learn something.
 * Invite your ideas on how, and we want consistency
 * We will provide a "pattern" and training at all levels
 * Online (Training schedule: Tuesdays, 9 a.m. October

Vision thinking (brainstorm)


 * DUP museum, museums
 * Death-related records page: Possible format at WikiHow
 * Historical societies, archives -- gleaning

4 September 2012

 * Birth templates, Utah State Archives, etc.
 * Can we have Liz proceed with birth area for all counties?
 * Just the state archive part or the entire "Since 1897" piece?
 * Liz went to BYU library and looked at every film. There are differences as some DO give the names of the children.
 * What about the other state archive holdings? Liz or prepare a project description?
 * Pattern page for Church Records -- Wilma
 * Funeral homes -- the bad news from Lois, plans for tomorrow's meeting
 * We will make further plans, but do they have
 * Strategy: pick a county - check death records for that county and look for names of funeral homes, then contact funeral director about that info.
 * Liz does Washington, Jana does Davis County.
 * Sandy UGA Conference -- What shall we recruit with now?
 * Still funeral homes? Remove. Can still do it at last minute
 * Public libraries?
 * Gather names of willing people, include a date for training re: whatever tasks were suggesting
 * Liz/Jana suggestions?
 * Let's have both avenues ready: training for gathering, email info to contact person to enter it; or if you prefer to put it in yourself, contact x person for training.
 * Requests for images of various types of Utah records? (Baby books, Funeral Programs, etc.?)
 * Utah page: request from the Thursday meeting group that we revamp it to interest and guide less experienced researchers. See England page for some ideas. -- Jana
 * What do we name this "sandbox" page? User:JanaStokes/Sandbox Utah
 * Shall we open it to someone else to do, or have us work on it with discussions? There is a difference when someone is writing it as opposed to a group putting it together
 * Painstakingly slow, but in the end it is just sooo good.
 * table at top is one suggestion
 * Death-related records page: Possible format at WikiHow