Family Search Wiki Can Answer Our Questions

Two topics from our meeting prompted me to write about the Family Search Wiki today.  I had been researching for a few years before I found the Wiki.  This wiki, like all wikis, contains articles written by a variety of staff and volunteers.  There are templates for a lot of the entries and you may see some with headings with no info below them because no one has written that section.  These dedicated staff and volunteers have submitted over 90,000 articles on every imaginable topic.  When you have a question about how to do genealogy, the Family Search Wiki is a place to look. This is NOT the section to search for your ancestors. 

Family Search

Everything about it is always free, all the time. To use familysearch.org, you will need to get a free account. To find the Wiki, login.  Then click on the Search tab, then Research Wiki, then type your subject in search box. 

Margie’s search for newspapers

Margie asked a question about how to access old newspapers to find an article about an ancestor. Answers included going to the library online, Newspapers.com, Newsbank, Chronicling America, Family Search Wiki for newspapers, or simply googling the name and location.   

Using Margie’s example: Search the Wiki for “US Newspapers” or for “Connecticut newspapers”.  You can even search for a specific county like “New London, Connecticut newspapers” and foreign countries.  There are also maps that you can click on a state or country.

For US papers: https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/United_States_Newspapers

For Connecticut papers:  https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Connecticut_Newspapers

Elizabeth’s search for a death certificate

At our meeting I commented too broadly about missing death records.  In the Family Search Wiki you can find out when vital records were required by the state.  A quick search for Onslow County, NC brought me to this:

Onslow County, North Carolina Record Dates

Information for this chart was taken from various sources, often containing conflicting dates. This information should be taken as a guide and should be verified by contacting the county and/or the state government agency.

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records[4]
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1914	1893	1914	1915	1734	1915	1784
Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1913. General compliance by 1920.

It was clear to me why I wasn’t finding a death certificate for my great-grandfather who died in 1908. 

Closing

It has only been in the last year or so that I have understood how important it is to understand the scope of any particular collection.  For instance, a collection called North Carolina Birth Records may only include four random counites or only some Catholic parish records for certain years.  You can save a lot of time by reading the description of a collection before you start.

In the Research Like a Pro Step 3 we create a Locality Guide.  The Family Search Wiki is usually my first stop to start a state guide and a county guide for the place I am researching.  There are other sources for this type of information but this is the place I start.

Make Family Search Wiki your first stop too.