FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Creating County Beginning Dates Tables

Current Projects page Creating Beginning Dates for County Records Table

Purpose
The purpose of this project is to add Beginning Date tables to county pages. .

Contact
Jane Colmenares

Tasks Page
Task Page

Instructions
1. Go to the Task Page and sign up for a state.

2. Go to the state you chose and use the list of county pages provided on the state page to visit each county.

3. In the first county, edit the page and go to Wikitext.

4. Go to the first heading. Copy and paste the following and place it just above the first heading and after the infobox.

=== County Information ===

5. Next, copy and paste the following directly below the heading you just added. ==== [add county name] Record Dates ====

6. Replace the brackets and "add county name" to the name of your county. Example: ==== Davidson County, Tennessee Record Dates ====

7. Add the following table in wikitext directly below the heading you added in step 6.

8. Add the name of the county page to each of the brackets in the table you just pasted. This will add a link to each topic on the county page. Go to the table and click on each link to see if they work. Each link should go to the heading listed lower on the page. For example, if you click on the Birth link on the table, it should jump down to the heading Birth down at the bottom of the page under Vital Records.

Be sure to check:


 * Make sure the link goes to the correct heading! The Birth link may actually go to the Census heading.
 * Make sure the link is still in the same county and the link doesn’t go to another one.

5. If the link works, go to the next link to see if it works, and so on. If all the links in the table work, move on to the next county.

IF A LINK IS BROKEN

6. If there is a broken or incorrect link, fix the link using the following directions:

7. Go to the table on the page and click on the Edit button to the right of the heading containing the table.

8. Go to wikitext to examine the links in the table.

9. Determine why the link is broken by examining the link to see if the code is correct. For instance, in this example the link for the Birth records is: Birth. However, when you go to the bottom of the county page you will see that the correct heading is really: Adams County, Indiana#Birth Records. Add the word "Records" to the link and save the page.



10. If the link goes to the wrong heading on the page, replace the correct word after the “#.”

11. Once you have fixed all the links in the table, go to the bottom of the page and add the following in the edit summary box: “Fixed broken links.”

12. Save the page.

13. Double check the link you fixed by clicking on the previously broken link in the table to make sure it works.

14. Once you have checked and fixed all the links in the Beginning Dates for County Records Table in each county of the state, go back to the task list and enter the completed date next to your name.