Family Search Wiki

 

Has anyone heard the saying Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime? Today I am going to help teach the group how to “fish”. Meaning This series will show everyone how to find information themselves, before asking someone for help.

Over the next few weeks, we will be talking about the various parts of Family Search. If you are someone who boycotts FS because of the tree, you are missing out on a wealth of knowledge to help you with your research.

Before everyone chimes in about the FS Tree, understand, there is way more to Family Search than the collaborative community tree, so any negative comments about the community tree will be removed.

I challenge everyone to use the WIKI FIRST, before asking for help to find something that could very well be on the wiki.

Below are some of the features available on Family Search:

·        The Family Search wiki (https://familysearch.org/wiki)

·        Full text search to find unindexed records based on keywords (https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/full-text/)

·        Free Webinars – learn how to use Family search, or focus on learning how to research in various countries (https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/FamilySearch_Library_Classes_and_Webinars)

·        Find a local affiliate library (https://locations.familysearch.org/en/search)

·        A large collection of books many viewable on Family search (https://www.familysearch.org/en/library/books/)

·        Volunteer to help standardize, transcribe or index records (https://www.familysearch.org/en/getinvolved/)

The Wiki is an amazing feature. It’s like Wikipedia for Genealogy Research. The pages are managed by FS staff and volunteers, and have been verified as quality links.

It is broken down by topics, as well as by countries, then states, then counties.

If you are looking for anything on a location, the wiki should be your first stop, even before going to facebook to ask a question.

Let’s say we were looking for a vital record, check out the wiki first, to see if the record exists. This is one of the most easily solved brick walls I see posted.

If you’re looking for a birth record from 1860 in Rush County Kansas, before asking for help finding a birth record:

  ·        Go to https://familysearch.org/wiki

  ·        Select North America

        ·        Scroll down to States of the United States (at the bottom of the list)

        ·        Select the State (in the example - KANSAS)

        ·        Select the county form the map or from the list of counties below the map - In this case RUSH)

·        

Once on this page look for the table with the Record dates.

      Here it tells you when the Civil (Government) Records started. Births started in 1895, so there will NOT be a Civil (government) record. This means you will need to look for a CHURCH RECORD. So asking for help finding a Birth record/certificate from 1860 in this county is futile. We are looking for a unicorn, (something that doesn’t exist.) Of the records shown here, the only government county records would be the 1855 census.

This County web page, also shows

·        any record loss, very important to know.

·        When the county started, and where it came from (Parent county)

o      In this case the county didn’t even exist until 1867, so we would have to look at the parent county record dates, which is an unorganized territory.

·        Scrolling down there are Resources, that show where certain records are found, with Links to them. If the link goes to a pay site there will be a $ on the line.

          1863-1908 U.S. Homestead Records 1863-1908 at Ancestry - — index & images ($)

·        You get info on the county courthouse, and what records they hold.

·        There is even sources referencing where the information came from.