FamilySearch Wiki:Manual of Style

A style guide or style manual is a set of standards for design and writing of documents, either for general use or for a specific publication or organization. Web site style guides focus on a publication's visual and technical aspects, prose style, best usage, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and fairness. The consistent use of style guidelines provides uniformity in style and formatting of wiki articles, which makes the articles easier for readers to understand and use.

General Principles
Respectful interactions. Comments and editing should be made with respect for other users and contributors.

Alternate opinions of information. How genealogists do family history is very individualized. Rather than editing and reediting and article, alternate information or methods may be added in a section such as "Other ways to find the information".

Appropriate content. Content and images must be appropriate to the FamilySearch Research Wiki. Inappropriate content or links will be removed.

Neutrality. Articles should be as neutral as possible. Descriptions should be factual and avoidnegative or positive judgements ("settlers from western Europe" rather than "poor, uneducated peasants"). Hype should be avoided ("The greatest thing since sliced bread!").

Simplicity. Writing should be clear and simple. When a term is used that may be unfamiliar to people (for example, gazetteer), it should be defined the first time it appears in the body of an article. Avoid using specialized terms or acronymns when a common term is available. As much as possible, the information should be understandable for every user, even if English is not the user's first language.

Name a new article
Before creating a new article, take the time to think of a name that clearly explains in a few words the content of the article.


 * Unique titles. No two articles may have the same title.
 * A wiki search should be done for the proposed title to ensure that there is not an existing article with that title.
 * Avoid duplication of articles. If an article already exists for the same topic, contributors should edit the existing article rather than create a new article.
 * Specific but short titles. Titles should be as short as possible but specific enugh that users can identify the topic of the article when it appears in the search results. Avoid clever but unclear titles. Remove any unnecessary words or punctuation.
 * Common terms. Titles should use common terms that users might search for. A well formatted name for a new article can be very helpful to users and make it easier for search engines to guide users to the most relevant wiki article.
 * You may want to run it by experienced wiki contributors.

Capitalization in titles
In titles, use sentence-style capitalization, which means that only the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. (For some wiki capabilities, sentence capitalization is required.) Do not list words all in capitals unless the word is an acronym.

Exception: The historical records collections in FamilySearch.org use book title capitalization.

Correct: Cemetery records for St. Joseph County, Michigan

Correct: Finding newspaper records

Incorrect: Finding Newspaper Records

Correct: Using GEDCOM files to share family history

Incorrect: FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS

Correct: Canada Ontario Births (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Place names
Places listed in ascending order. If a city or county is listed in a title, at least the state, province, or country where the place is located should also be listed. The place is listed in ascending order (smallest place to largest). Unlike most genealogy software place name conventions, Include the word "county" in the title of an article about a particular county.

Exception: The titles of historical records collections in FamilySearch.org list places in descending order.

Correct: Utah Salt Lake County Death Registers (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Correct: Canada Ontario Births (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Places that have had different names or jurisdictions. If a place has had more than one name or been in more than one jurisdiction (county, state, province, country and so on), the current name and jurisdiction should be used in the title. If the article gives information about the place only when it had a specific name or jurisdiction, use those in the title. Redirects can be used to make sure users will find the article regardless of the name or jurisdiction they search for.

Non English place names. Generally, if a country is listed in the title, use the English name (for example, Germany rather than Deutschland). Search engines pull up a different list of articles depending on the place that is listed in the title. Redirects can be used to make sure users will find the article regardless of which spelling is used.

Places and dates in titles. If the place, country, or time period is important to the content of the article, include them in the title of the article. Add the word county in the title if the article is about a county.

Correct: Birth records for Farmington, Utah, from 1890 to 1925

Correct: Orange County, California

Incorrect: Orange, California

Diacritics and quotation marks
In article titles, you may use words with diacritics or letters that do not appear in the English alphabet however, the search engine may not display the article if users search for the English version of the word. Quotation marks should be avoided in article titles.

Punctuation
Do not end the title with punctuation.

Correct: Finding newspaper records

Incorrect: Finding newspaper records.

Abbreviations
Abbreviations, including US postal codes, should not be used in article titles or text because abbreviations can mean different things in different parts of the world. For example, the abbreviation CA could mean either California or Canada, depending on the reader's nationality.

For more information about naming conventions, see also Help:Naming conventions.

Italics
In a title, italicize only the titles of books and ships.

Rename an existing article
Renaming (moving) an article or page means giving it another name. In other words, the content on a page contained under one title is moved to a new page with a different title. The page is "renamed." Renaming an existing article may be desired if you find that the article title was misspelled or is ambiguous.

Naming subheadings within articles
Organizing information. In an article, subheadings or sections should be used to organize the content and keep similar information together. Subheadings should help users scan an article to find the information they need.

Guidelines for subheadings/section titles. Use the guidelines for article titles with the following differences.

Font
Regardless of the font you paste into the wiki edit screen, your work will be saved in the system's default font.

Bold
In rare cases, if a word must be emphasized, use bold.

Italics
Use italics if a word must be emphasized. List book titles in italics. Do not use italics for quoted text.

Underline
Because the use of underline indicates text with a hyperlink that can be clicked to learn more, do not use underline as a way to emphasize text.Do not underline book titles.

Geographical Names
A proposed style guideline Naming Conventions for Geographic Names is being discussed. Once a consensus is reached a guideline will be adopted.

Linking to other articles in FamilySearch wiki

 * FamilySearch Wiki:Linking
 * Help:Create an internal link
 * Help:Create an external link
 * Help:Advanced Linking
 * Help:Section - the content under "Section linking" appears to be incorrect. A review is needed.
 * Help:Wiki markup

Linking through the use of page section templates

 * Dablink - the disambiguation template
 * Details
 * Further
 * Main
 * See also

Other possible templates to create include:


 * Subarticle - see Wikipedia's Template:Subarticle for details
 * Cat also - see Wikipedia's Template:Cat also for details

Linking through the use of metatemplates

 * See Category:Metatemplates for a list of metatemplates available for use

Links should not display the full URL
Many URLs (website addresses) are long and not reader-friendly. For readability's sake, links should not include the full URL of the destination page. There may be extremely rare instances where displaying the full URL is desirable, but this should be the exception, not the rule, and should be done only if there is a compelling reason.

Example 1: a link by itself
Correct: FamilySearch

Incorrect: http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp

Example 2: a link in context
Correct: Order United States military records online.

Incorrect: Go to https://eservices.archives.gov/orderonline/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&amp;SWEView=GPEA+Product+Detail+-+Features+View+FFO&amp;SWEHo=eservices.archives.gov&amp;SWETS=1199728061&amp;SWEPostnApplet=GPEA+Product+Form

https://eservices.archives.gov/orderonline/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&amp;SWEView=GPEA+Product+Detail+-+Features+View+FFO&amp;SWEHo=eservices.archives.gov&amp;SWETS=1199728061&amp;SWEPostnApplet=GPEA+Product+Form to order United States military records online.

Click here to order United States military records online.

Clearly, the first link is much easier to read, takes less space, and helps users understand what they will find by clicking the link.

"For pay" web sites
If you refer to a subscription website or one which has a charge to obtain information, use the "$" to indicate that there may be a fee for the site.

OCLC/WorldCat
Using the WorldCat template for these links will allow the links to be easily updated if the web address changes.

FHLC
Using the FHL template for these links will allow the links to be easily updated if the web address changes.

Record Search
Using the RecordSearch template for these links will allow the links to be easily updated if the web address changes.

Wikipedia
Using the Wikipedia template for these links will allow the links to be easily updated if the web address changes.

Box layout: columns vs. portals
Authors desiring to display a wiki page's content in boxes should use tables within columns instead of using sub-pages within portals. To see the code that allows one to layout columns and tables, go to the Maryland page, click Edit, and switch to Wikitext view. To see an example of portal code, go to the India portal on Wikipedia and click Edit this page. For more about this topic, see The Un-Portal Page.

Draft Pages or Sandboxes
Major editing work on a page that will not be finished for an extended time may confuse visitors to the page. To avoid this, it is recommend that lengthy or long term editing preparations are worked on in a sandbox you create. Be sure to add a link in the "Discussion" page of where the planned changes will be posted, to the sandbox where the planned changes are being worked on. This will allow comments on the new content until it is moved from the sandbox page to the page that needs the changes.