Getting Started with Historical Records

Welcome
The User Guidance unit focuses on writing articles in the FamilySearch Wiki about genealogical collections provided online through FamilySearch.org. We are very excited to have you working with us. Whether you choose to be an official volunteer or an occasional collaborator, how long you work on our site and what you work on will remain completely up to you. If you are unsure where to begin, here are a few ways you can help out:

Sign Up as an Official Historical Records Volunteer

 * Fill out our questionnaire and email it to [mailto:horandm@familysearch.org horandm@familysearch.org]
 * Receive email updates from locations or topics that interest you.

Add Content to Our “Stub” Articles

 * Projects needing content
 * Guidelines we follow when creating Historical Records wiki articles

Share Your Ideas or Ask About the Wiki in an Online Contributor Meeting
Other Wiki Community Meetings

Join an Online Family History Community
These communities are being created to help you and others researching in the same area to help you: FamilySearch Genealogy Research Groups on Facebook are free to join. You do need to be a member of Facebook. The Research Groups are divided by area of the world. Pick the group or groups you are interested and "like" the page, then feel free to post your questions or join in the discussions.
 * Collaborate on your research
 * Ask questions and share answers
 * Share knowledge from personal research

General Links for Creating/Editing Wikis
An Introduction to the Wiki
 * Navigation - Learn more about the purpose and direction of the FamilySearch wiki.
 * Wiki Basics - Learn the basics to get the most out of the Wiki.
 * Contributor Help - This page provides links to lessons and videos to help you register for FamilySearch and learn how to edit and update the wiki articles.

Creating New Wiki Pages Creating a Page - This page provides links to our formatting style guide, as well as a process by which you can create a completely new page to share the genealogy you know. Before creating a new wiki article page, Remember:
 * First look for similarly titled Wiki articles you can add your content to. This helps us prevent the creation of duplicate articles.
 * Be very careful when you edit in wiki text. Some common errors found in the wiki include: capitalizing the title in the template, not repeating CID, and putting a space between the CIDs or between CID and the CID number.

Editing Wiki Pages
 * Wiki Markup - Wiki markup is the text you use to format a Historical Records Wiki page. This page will explain the links, URLs, and formatting you will need to use.
 * Help:Formatting – This page will help explain formatting tricks to use in the wiki.

Deleting Wiki Pages Deleting Wiki Articles – While wiki users are not generally authorized to delete pages, this page explains how you can mark an article as needing to be deleted.