FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah

Join in and help and help thousands use the FamilySearch Wiki to learn about records and ideas to find their people who lived in Utah at some point. The project will begin in earnest January 1, 2012 and is expected to be very active for three to six months. With people like YOU, the Utah Genealogical Association (UGA), and a few at the Family History Library, let's make the Utah-related pages easily understood, inviting, and oh, so useful!



Overall Objectives
The purpose of the Utah FamilySearch Wiki is to help readers find and use Utah records for genealogy and family history.

The objective of the Utah project is to update and improve:


 * Utah main page.
 * Statewide topic pages. Example Vital Records
 * County pages. Example Beaver County
 * Other Utah-related pages

Guiding Principles

 * Identify important and relevant items. Let's Include enough details to higlight what's important and will help users. We won't, however, link to every website or list every publication, since that would bury, rather than highlight, what's important.


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


 * Balance content with these four factors in mind:


 * a. Genealogical Value. 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.

First Focus
Basic content will first be added to the county pages. Training and step-by-step tasks will identify what and how to add that content. Additional content will likely be added by others in the genealogical community at large.

The first focus of this project includes adding to every Utah county page:


 * Links to online resources, such as indexes and/or images of records or tips on how to use those records.
 * Local repositories (libraries, archives, museums) and the records and resources they may have.
 * Links to sites that may reveal additional records and resources or make them more available to users. This includes links to the Family History Library catalog, Google books, and WorldCat among others.
 * Any record loss, a brief history, etc. (Parent counties, neighboring counties are already added for Utah counties.)

Model Style Page of a Utah County
NOTE: Currently the style is on the Discussion page for the county. Will be transferred to the county page when approved.AdkinsWH 22:54, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

See Beaver County.

Utah Wiki project tasks
The following plans describe tasks to be accomplished for the Utah Wiki Project. Each task has step-by-step instructions to accomplish it.

Tasks ready for volunteers

 * Links to topics in the Family History Library Catalog This allows only the best items to be highlighted in the Wiki while informing users of other records or resources that are available. This also makes it so the Wiki won't have to be updated each time new things are added to the sites included.

Tasks not yet ready
These are not yet ready, but you may want to know what is on the horizon.


 * History section of the counties Link to online histories of each county.
 * Cemeteries in the counties Link to websites that can be linked specifically to the counties.
 * Family Associations/Societies Links to organizations based on descendency (e.g. Jared Pratt Family Association) Dggard 08:49, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Great idea! We will implement this. AdkinsWH 00:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Newspapers by county
 * Repositories in the county: libraries, museums, etc. Phase 1: Add contact information for local libraries, societies, and other record holders in each county.
 * State repositories: Utah State Archives, DUP, SUP, State Historical Society, state libraries, etc.
 * Church records Phase 1.
 * Major websites: statewide and county-by-county.
 * Migration: Railroad, trails, etc.
 * Native American records Dggard 08:12, 14 November 2011 (UTC) Another great idea. Much may already be done, which we will link to for sure. Thanks! AdkinsWH 00:03, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

If you have additional ideas, please add them to this list and sign it by adding 4 tildes ( ~ )

Tasks completed

 * County GenWeb Links Link to databases on county GenWeb databases, with information to help users decide to click or not.
 * County Headings 2 Comments on the Discussion page for county headings have prompted some changes that need to be made to each county. *County Headings The genealogical community has given careful consideration to the headings and their arrangement in each county. The Utah county headings were created some time ago, and now need to be "remodeled," so to speak. That is the purpose of this task. It requires attention to detail, but is otherwise an easy task to accomplish.
 * County History List by year historical events that affected the records and the record-keeping in each county, such as settlement and migration, or natural events, such as flooding, drought, or fires.
 * County Courthouse Find uncopyrighted images of the courthouse (historical or current) and upload them. List their contact information (address, phone, email), including a link to website, addresses, etc.

Community/Team Meetings
Come for training, practice, news, progress reports, answers to your questions, and confidence!


 * Time: 6:00 p.m. on Thursdays (virtual meeting via computer and telephone)
 * If you've never done it before, it's amazing. And you can do it from home, at a library, or wherever you have an internet connection and a telephone.
 * Contact User:HoleDL telephone 801-240-4093 or User:Wyzer17 telephone 801-240-4419 for help or more details.


 * Community/Team Meeting agendas

Administrative Meetings
Wednesdays 9 a.m. FHL 3rd floor glass meeting room. Dawne Hole, Marilyn Markham, Patsy Hendrickson, and Wilma Adkins.


 * Admin Agendas


 * Admin Minutes

Meetings with consultants, moderators, etc.


 * Consultant/moderator meetings

Schedule
2011 12 October Show and tell and brainstorm with US/Canada Consultants and Utah moderators 15 October show and tell WikiProject Utah to Logan Family History conference. Begin recruiting, set up training.

July 2011 Began weekly meetings with project administrators to plan the project: Dawne Hole, Marilyn Markham, Patsy Hendrickson, Wilma Adkins, with input from others.


 * Meeting times: Administrators -- 9 a.m. Wednesday mornings, 3rd floor FHL. Agendas. Minutes.

Administrators' schedule:


 * Nov, 2011


 * Set the Utah Wiki project schedule
 * Approve the project model county style page Beaver County
 * Adopt the existing tasks or create a proposed alternative task list. Review tasks descriptions and steps.
 * Review and create "how to's" that support task descriptions
 * Begin recruiting for beginning of Jan community kickoff of the project


 * Dec 31, 2011


 * Approve Utah treasurer hunt rules/guidelines and prizes.
 * Complete and approve project rules
 * Approve a project completion measuring tool (possibly modeled after the one for Illinois)

2011


 * 31 Dec Complete descriptions and step-by-step guides for tasks to be accomplished during the Utah Wiki project.
 * Tasks will be planned for those who prefer tasks that don't require a lot of thinking or original writing, as well as those who prefer more challenging tasks.

2012


 * 1 Jan Start weekly meetings with the community and contributors to report progress, give training, and brainstorm additional ideas for the project.
 * [TBD] With much of the planned content in Utah counties completed, the Utah treasure hunt for other records and resources begins. This will be a contest, with prizes from FamilySearch, UGA, and others.
 * [TBD] The Utah treasure hunt contest ends.
 * [TBD] Utah Wiki Project becomes inactive as a project, although many will continue contributing to its pages.

Progress Chart
NOTE: The progress chart will come to Google.Docs soon, allowing for quicker, easier update.

Utah interests chart
Please register the Utah counties of topics that interest you. By registering an interest, you will be invited to give ideas and suggestions, you will be kept up-to-date, and you won't be contacted for everything else.

To be clear, this is not a committment of time or labor. This is a pool of experts and advisors to make the Utah pages "oh, so helpful."

We ask that each participant paste the following code on their user page:



Project Guidelines
The following guidlines will be followed by the WikiProject Utah members until end of the project, tentatively scheduled for TBD 2012.

Vetted content
Before you add similar words to more than one Utah Wiki page, your words must be vetted and approved by any two other team members who are guided by rule #1 and agree with you on that way of presenting it.

Style
The first few weeks of the Utah project we will agree on a model style, and create at least one example page of it. To keep the project moving forward, NO style changes nor further discussion of changes will be allowed after that for the remainder of the project (tentatively until TBD 2012). Participants are expected to follow that style during the project.

Style includes but is not limited to:


 * Use of standard Utah templates
 * Headings (anything that would appear in a table of contents) match with FHL Catalog subject headings as much as possible Example: Beaver County, Utah
 * Heading levels: use levels three, four or five; avoid levels one and two
 * Order of presentation
 * Table of contents style or position (or lack of TOC)
 * image, table, or template positions or size; prefer sharp images relevant to the topic on the page
 * font
 * bold
 * italic for titles of published books
 * underline
 * indentation
 * bullets. Items under headings on county pages will be bulleted lists. Information describing the headings themselves will not be bulleted.
 * numbering
 * citations in footnote style
 * Please use the full Chicago Manual of Style footnote style (modified):


 * Author(s), followed by a comma
 * Title (book titles in italics)
 * Publication data in parenthesis:
 * - Publication place, followed by a colon
 * - Publisher
 * - Year of publication
 * - comma, and the the page number(s) followed by a period
 * Access information:
 * - link to free online copy, if any. IF a free online copy is available no further access data needs to be added.
 * - IF NO free online edition is available, then add:
 * - WorldCat template:.
 * - FHL template:.
 * - Brief annotation explaining the content, or why, or how a reader would want to use the source.


 * image, table, or template style
 * internal link style
 * external link style including brief annotation. Prefer http:// links over https:// links.

Wording changes
Before changing the saved wording of another team member who followed these rules you must get their consent (except for obvious minor typos).

Links with purpose
The Wiki is not a links repository. It uses links to support the genealogical educational purpose of a page or section of a page. Show and explain links with an educational purpose in mind. Annotate each external link briefly but well enough for the reader to realize what they will be getting if they click that link.

Seek out local and unique
Seek out local and unique genealogical search strategies, records, or repositories and explain them to readers.

Describe each edit
Describe each edit in theSummaryfield before clicking the Savebutton.

Non-compliance
Non-compliance will result in work being reverted, or changed to follow these rules.

Templates
It has been decided to use templates for wording that will be used over and over in county, town, or other pages. This will allow changes to be made across all pages simultaneously.

If you wish to edit an existing template page, please post your proposed changes to the discussion page for that template before making changes. Please place a watch on templates you have written or edited. If no responses within 1 week, contact the team member(s) who created the original.

Before creating a template, click on the what templates already exist.

To create a new template that will be used on several pages for the Utah WikiProject:

1. Create a new page with the following name: Template:UtahCo[record type] 2. Type the text for your template. Make sure that all concepts, sentence structure, and grammar are independent and can stand on their own if need be. 3. Add the category to the new template page using the following wikitext:. (Be sure to include the . Otherwise the category will also appear on all pages that merely have the template placed on them.) 4. Approve the wording with administrators of the Utah WikiProject Team. 5. Add the template to county pages using Otherwise those pages will be added to the category Templates for Utah project.

To see a list of current existing templates for this project, click the category below "Templates for Utah project."