FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah

Wiki community members, Utah Genealogical Association (UGA), and a few members of US/Canada Reference at the Family History Library will work to improve the Utah related pages on the FamilySearch Wiki from November 2011 through March 2012 to help educate genealogists how to find ancestors who lived part of their lives in Utah. We hope you'll be part of the project to help untold numbers of future users!

Model Utah County Style Page
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.

Tasks Ready for Volunteers
The following tasks describe what needs to be accomplished for the Utah WikiProject. They also have step-by-step instructions for those volunteers who wish to use them.


 * County History Add information about the history of each county.
 * County GenWeb Links Review existing county GenWeb sites. Link to their databases, giving information to help users decide to click or not.

Planned, not yet ready
These tasks are not yet ready for volunteers, but you may want to know what is on the horizon.


 * Cemeteries in the counties Find-A-Grave and other websites that can be linked specifically to the counties.
 * Link to topics in Library Catalog This allows users to see what is at the FHL without having to list each one nor to update as new things are added. This will also allow only the best items to be highlighted in the Wiki.
 * 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.

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

Tasks Completed

 * 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.

Progress Chart
See WikiProject Utah Progress Chart.

Participants
List of participants of FamilySearch Wiki:WikiProject Utah:

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



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.

TBD October initial Project Utah meeting to:


 * select future meeting times
 * approve a Wiki site for Project Utah meeting agenda and minutes
 * approve a tentative Project Utah schedule
 * approve or begin approving proposed project rules
 * approve or begin approving a proposed project model county style page


 * In subsequent meetings finish any business from above, and:


 * adopt the existing task list for modification, or create a proposed alternative task list
 * approve a project completion measuring tool (possibly modeled after the one for Illinois)

2012 1 Jan Much planned content in Utah counties is completed. Utah treasure hunt begins. 31 Mar treasure hunt contest for Utah ends. TBD WikiProject Utah ends.

Overall Objectives
Improve or create Utah related Wiki pages:


 * Top Utah introductory page
 * Statewide topic pages
 * County pages
 * Repository pages
 * Migration pathway pages

The purpose of the FamilySearch Wiki is to help users by giving them knowledge about records and methods for genealogy and family history for Utah. We need to include enough to really help.

It is NOT the Wiki's purpose to link to every website or list every publication that exists. That would overwhelm and clutter the Wiki and would bury – rather than highlight – important and relevant items.

It is the intent of this project to add content valuable to Wiki users to every Utah county page. This includes:


 * Links to online resources, such as indexes or images of records or tips on how to use those records.
 * Links to the Family History Library collections.
 * Local repositories (libraries, archives, museums) and what they may have.
 * Parent counties, neighboring counties, any record loss, brief history, and more.

Most of the content will be added by people like you who get training and follow guidelines (called Tasks) for what to add and where to find it.

Next Scheduled Meeting

 * Next meeting: TBD
 * Format: MeetingPlace Meetings ID ????. Click to Attend or Dial in Number: 801-240-2663. MeetingPlace ID ????.


 * Contact User:HoleDL telephone 801-240-4093 for details.

Meeting Agendas
See Meeting Agendas.

Meeting Minutes
See Meeting Minutes.

Framework
Proposed subject to community approval: The following rules will be adopted by the WikiProject Utah members until end of the project tentatively schedules for 31 January 2012.

1A. Project Goal: Concentrate on adding new content that teaches readers how to use well Utah genealogical search strategies, records, or repositories. 1B. Benchmarks: Create content for Utah Wiki pages with a balance of these four hierarchical factors in mind:


 * a. Genealogical Pedagogical Purpose. Be able to explain what the reader can do genealogically that they could not do before reading your words or seeing your images or tables.
 * b. Clarity. Make sure everyone understands your meaning and the pedagogical purpose of your words.
 * c. Brevity. Be succinct as possible without sacrificing pedagogical purpose or clarity.
 * d. Documentation. Footnote(s) revealing the source(s) of the content you are creating.

2. 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.

3. Style. The first few days of the Utah project we will agree on a model style, and create at least one example page of it. Team members must follow that style during the project. After that agreement NO style changes will be allowed for the remainder of the project (tentatively until 1 February 2012). No discussion of changing the style will be allowed. Style includes but is not limited to:


 * Words used in headers (anything that would appear in the table of contents if there were one) Match with FHL Catalog subject headings as much as possible.
 * Heading levels three, four or five; avoid 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
 * 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.
 * use, or lack of use of standard templates

4. 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).

5. 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.

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

7. Describe each edit in the Summary field before clicking the Save button.

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

Templates
It has been decided to use templates for narrative text that will be used over and over in county, town, or other pages (such as topic pages). This will allow changes to be made across all pages simultaneously.

Before creating a template, click on the category link listed below to be sure that a template filling your need does not already exist. If you need to create a template, follow the steps below. If you wish to edit an existing template page, please contact the team member(s) who created the original before making your changes.

To create a new narrative template for the pages of the Utah WikiProject:

1. Create a new page with the following name: Template:Utah[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 Utah Project template category using the following wikitext:. (If the category is added to the template without the, the category will also appear on all pages that use the template.) 4. Approve the wording with at least three other members of the Utah WikiProject Team. 5. Add the template to county pages using

To see a list of current existing narrative templates, see Templates for Utah pages.