Over the past few months I have been contributing to FamilySearch’s Research Wiki. In August I did a post describing my overall & positive impressions of the site. Essentially, it could become the Wikipedia for Genealogy if enough of us contribute to it. FamilySearch already has an impressive number of volunteers contributing to the Indexing initiative and it would be nice to see momentum gather around the Wiki.
The Wiki team has pursued collaborations with genealogy projects and societies as one method to increase contributions. It is in these efforts that I’ve been involved, for all three of the state USGenWeb projects in which I participate have “adopted” the corresponding wiki sites. The TNGenWeb, NCGenWeb and FLGenWeb have all signed on to help add resources and information.
The Wiki is easy to add to – very much “what you see is what you get” with the option to add using wiki code if you’re comfortable with that syntax. Tonight, I focused on adding links to the North Carolina counties I either host or am temporarily taking care of – Craven, Jones, Lenoir, Martin, Onslow, Wake, and Washington. A friend of mine sent me a template she uses for county sites and after viewing it, I created an outline for myself. Though not as easy to use as a “template,” with my outline I can get a bare bones page up in less than 30 minutes. The pages can always be enhanced, but at least if someone lands on them it won’t be blank :-).
If you have knowledge to share about any genealogy resources, consider adding to the Wiki. Registration is easy and you’ll be going in no time at all. I am trying to condition myself to use it as my own personal research tool – adding links to resources as I come across them from the appropriate page. So far, there’s only one drawback — I can’t seem to login with Google Chrome and need to use Firefox instead. Hopefully they’ll fix that issue soon!
Saturday Night Wiki Fest
