FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah Community Meeting 2012 May 8

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Agenda
Anyone new to this meeting?

Meeting Participants:

Jana, Marilyn, Liz, Wilma Excused: Maren Jeppson, Lois Fowles, Patsy Hendrickson

News and Events

 * May 17 Your Head in the Cloud and Your Feet on the Ground presented by Bret Petersen, UGA Board Member. This is the UGA Virtual Chapter meeting which occurs every 3rd Thursday, 7:00 p.m. (Mountain).
 * June 9 (Saturday) Murray Family History Fair Saturday, June 9th. Click on Classes.
 * June 16 (Saturday) Mormon History Bus Tours of Echo Canyon and of East Canyon.
 * July 31-Aug 3 BYU Conference on Family History &amp; Genealogy
 * August 18 (Saturday) UGA Regional Conference Cedar City
 * September 21 and 22 (Friday and Saturday) UGA Regional Conference Sandy


 * 1940 Census Help UGA's project with FamilySearch Indexing.
 * Creation of Utah Wiki Project Forum (date to be announced- but soon Forums were changed yesterday -- there is a thread for Wiki Projects. There is a new subforum. Put up a page in the wiki and thread in forums.

Review of last meeting

 * Wednesday, 18 Apr

Progress reports

 * See current "Tip" icon: Utah Newspapers What do you think?
 * Newspapers task: Several counties done, soon will be testing the instructions on new people (who could turn out to be contributors. A bigger purpose is to make the task instructions "doable," in case others want to do the same for their states or counties.
 * Three meetings with Jana, Liz, and Wilma. Our objective is to get something started on a topic, so people in the regular meeting can respond, give feedback, add ideas, suggest resources. We also organize notes from previous discussions so we can move forward steadily.
 * Ideas for formatting Vital Records have been set forth. More in the discussion area.

Idea share
Review wording, etc. for the county newspaper page.

Task for brief discussion
Topics that may need less discussion: Leader/assistants do examples, get suggestions and approval: Liz and Jana have volunteered to be assistants.

Nothing further has been done on "Quick" tasks this past 3 weeks.

Future "quick" tasks:


 * Obituaries
 * Probate
 * Land and property
 * Court
 * Funeral home records

Vital records (BMD, Div)
Vital Records discussion led by Jana.

Summary of minutes:


 * Date or timeline concept giving suggestions based on birth years. Liked by everyone
 * Table concept OK'd. Jana and Liz will play with the columns and headings
 * The purposes of each VR section were discussed
 * 1) Our first purpose: help them get a birth date/place, even when the best records (i.e. certificates) did not exist.
 * 2) If they can't find it from the major sources, what do they do.
 * 3) Then help them get other records that may provide more clues. (How do we move them toward other skills?)
 * 4) Then help them know how to deal with clues. Not part of Utah project to write, but to Link only Analyze, see clues, etc. US and Utah VR pages have separate pages on how to use birth, death, marriage.
 * Create a page (or add to the state page) a link to alternative resources and be sure they are well explained in that area. Exceptions that affect a county should be explained within that county. That breakout page is a good place to explain anomalies about collections.
 * Refer to NY VR pages for examples to employ or modify
 * Add a link from Historical Records pages to Utah VR page.
 * We need a footnoting task description. Marilyn has much on this already and will email to Liz, Jana, Wilma.
 * Must-haves on the section:
 * Dates for each county: top of page, but also needed here. Intro statement: County formed in 1856, records start in 1892. (Added after meeting: but keep up their hope of finding something anyway)
 * Also need to tell where originals are. Detailed stuff needs to go at bottom of the table. Or in introductory paragraph before. Can even include the history of where the records are and were.
 * 1905 statewide system began. Counties vary. in compliance for each county. At county level is most valuable.

Assignments: Jana: VR births Liz: VR marriages and Washington County table at top -- check links and dates. Wilma: Newspapers county page: finish, do several county pages, summarize minutes, clear stuff from exper co page to its talk page Marilyn: email her info on footnoting

Minutes taken during meeting 5/9/12

Dates for each county: top of page, but also needed here.

People think certificates have been around forever.

Get them going in the right direction

Intro statement: (disclaimer?) County formed in 1856, records start in 1892.

The purpose is to help people know what they need to do for when the records did not exist.

Not so much repitition, put a link to another area where it can be explained more. Alternatives/Subs especially for early times. It will be the same in most, with exceptions.

1905 statewide system began. Counties vary. in compliance for each county. At county level is most valuable.

Breakout page is good place to explain about anomallys such as ssdi covers 1961? Useful for back to 1880s

Utah VR page is very good. US VR page is very good. Refer to it. Refer to NY VR also.

Utah Substitute VR page. - or expand what is already there. Explanation about each of them.

Additional resources for records", "Also search", Explanation somewhere: why are you making me search this record?

They just want the date: how can we help them move beyond just the date?

1) Our first purpose: help them get a birth date/place. 2) If they can't find it from the major sources, what do they do. 3) Then help them get other records that may provide more clues.

Also need to tell where originals are. Detailed stuff needs to go at bottom of the table. Can even include the history of where the records are and were. Or in introductory paragraph before.

Link on Historical Records page back to Utah VR page. Utah VR page needs links to analyze, etc. Also, collection anomallies. Where do those belong? Where the record is described should have these anomalies.

4) Then help them know how to deal with clues. Link only Analyze, see clues, etc. US pages have separate pages on how to use birth, death, marriage.

Column headings? Assignments: Jana - birth, Liz - Mg, Wilma Newspapers, move minutes to talk page. Get Lois on the Newspaper task for feedback. (Jana did talk to someone who is willing to give it a go) Here what they are thinking, where they are going. Don't tell them to press anything. Have here explain what she thinks is happening, but not what should happen. Liz will do Washington County table and links.

Marilyn: box elder co, one went to Brigham City stuff with FamilySearch Centers. (The Utah project does not impact FHC pages, for the most part.) We need a footnote task description. MJM has been writing some stuff and will email it to all three of us. Based on Chicago Manual of Style w/influence from Elizabeth Shown Mills Quick list.

Future meetings
Meetings will be held on Wednesdays at 9:00 a.m.

Next week:


 * Progress reports
 * To be determined by the group

To discuss soon:

Tasks for:


 * Vital records setup: making ready for items to be entered
 * Cemetery records
 * Church records
 * Funeral home records
 * Land and property
 * Probate
 * Court


 * Provide context continued
 * Tip Bank continued.