FamilySearch Wiki:Stub

What's a stub? A stub is an article with minimal information, but on a topic relevant to genealogical research; and one that is capable of expansion. You are welcome to add content or otherwise edit stub articles! Find a listing of them in the Category:Stubs.

Sizable articles are usually not considered stubs, even if they lack wikification or copy editing. With these articles, a cleanup template is usually added instead of a stub template. Note that if a small article has little properly sourced information, or if its subject has no inherent notability, it may be deleted or be merged into another relevant article.

There is no set size at which an article stops being a stub. While very short articles are likely to be stubs, there are some subjects about which there is very little that can be written. Conversely, there are subjects about which a lot could be written - their articles may still be stubs even if they are a few paragraphs long. As such, it is impossible to state whether an article is a stub based solely on its length, and any decision on the article has to come down to an editor's best judgement

How to mark an article as a stub
After writing a short article, or finding an unmarked stub, you should insert the Stub template.

Locating stubs

 * Category:Stub categories - the main list of stub categories and of articles contained within them
 * Category:Stubs - used when a specific stub category has not yet created or is unknown
 * Special:Shortpages - auto-generated list of short pages, sorted with shortest first
 * By setting Threshold for stub link formatting in Preferences > Misc to a maximum number of bytes to make links to pages smaller than a certain size appear in a different colour.

Stubs about places: Add information!
Many stubs are about places. There are many types of information you can easily add to a place page, including but not limited to:


 * Ethnic groups
 * Events
 * Non-English Research Tools
 * County Origin. For instance, if the place page is about a county, the page could contain information about the county's parent counties. This information is often on the Family History Library Catalog. Include minimalist/simple/crucial information rather than general information.
 * Links to other helpful/relevant pages in Wiki
 * Links to pages on local ethnic, religious, or racial groups
 * Strategy docs/case studies
 * Gazetteers/place finding aids
 * Translation or handwriting guides
 * Links to pertinent online forums and discussion groups
 * Links to digitized county histories
 * Timelines covering (destruction of records, natural disasters, major migrations, etc..)
 * Genealogical/Historical Events in the local media
 * Images of the place or its records
 * Events that affect jurisdictions and records
 * Events affecting many deaths or migrations
 * Laws affecting adoptions, marriages, migrations, or record format
 * Laws affecting record access
 * Inventions (travel, migrations, etc.) epidemics, delays between inventions and their widespread acceptance (such as the Utah railroad)
 * Information on wars and drafts
 * Migration routes per time period