Help:Contents

Editing a wiki

A wiki is a type of website that anyone can edit. If you can type and click, you can edit almost every page on this website. (Pages you cannot edit include stuff for administrators, but you don't really need to be concerned about those.)

Red hyperlinks (such as this one) indicate that the page does not exist and needs to be created. A blue hyperlink indicates that the hyperlink is to an active page or a hyperlink to an external website.

To edit part of a page, click the [edit] button on a section title. You can also edit a whole page at once using the "edit" tab or button at the top or side of the page. When the edit box opens, type away just as in a word processing program (with minor variations). Then hit the Preview button, then the Save button.

For more information on editing, read the specific sections below.

Once you know the basics, you may want to create a page about Mount Moriah or one or more of your ancestors. Or, you might want to set your account preferences.

Setting Your Preferences

A user may customize the way a wiki page appears, or in how the wiki processes certain actions. Click the "preference" tab to go to your personal preference page. (If you are using the default settings, the preference tab probably appears along the top margin of the page.) Here you can

• Change your password
• Give your email address if you want people to be able to email you
• Set time display settings
• Adjust settings for things like "search", "WatchList", etc.

Finding an Article of Interest

Probably the first thing you will want to do here is find an article about someone you are interested in, say your great great grandfather. There are two main ways to do this:

• Use the standard search function. Every page on this wiki includes a search box, either in the navigation pane or somewhere in the body of the page. Type in the name of the person you are looking for, and click the "search button" below the entry field. You'll get a list of articles that contain whatever you placed in the data entry box.

• Check the Special:Categories page. That page includes a listing of every category that has been created on this wiki. Find the category you are intersted in, click the link, and you'll get a list of articles that have been categorized. You might want to also use the Special:AllPages link to see a list of all files on the site.

Communicating with Others

User Page

When you register with this website (See Special:UserLogin) you automatically get a "user's page". User's pages have a number of uses, the most common of which is to use the "Discussion subpage" to receive messages from other Wikians. You can set up your main User page anyway you like. Some people use it to tell something about themselves. Others use it as a place to test out ideas, or to keep track of articles that they have written.

Editing an Existing Article

Check whether the article exists

If you want to start a page for an individual or a place, please save yourself and other researchers time by ensuring that there is not already a page with that name. Type the name in the "Search" box, click "Search", and see what hits you get. Check out any that may be your person or place.

Use existing page if there is one

If you find a page that has the right name and you don't know if the dates are right but they could be, we suggest that you use that page as if it were the right one. (It will be much easier to copy your additions to another page later, if a difference is found, than to merge two pages about the same individual.) Note your differences on it or on its talk page.

Creating a New Article

Create the page from a link

If your person turns up in the text of another page, start there. If it is not in the form of a link, make it one (with the "Internal link" button above the edit box or by putting double square brackets around the name and the dates, and editing the text if necessary, so that it is in this form: [[Firstname Middlename Lastname (year-year)]] - with "?" for unknown year; then saving the page). Click on that link and start typing in the edit box of the page the link takes you to.

Start a really "new" person page

So your individual 's name does not appear as the page name of, or anywhere else on, an existing page? Then you may create a link to the individual's name and dates on another page (such as your User page or a subpage of that - which helps you keep track of which articles you have started, then preview or save it, then click on the link you have created. A blank "edit" box will open ready for text to be added. You may want to take a look at some of the existing pages for how to structure your pages.

Start a really "new" place page

If you want to start a page for a place and that place does not exist either through an existing page or a link on an existing page, then use an existing page as your model or copy the outline of another nearby place so that some of the categories and other links will be the same.

In theory, you can name an article anything you want. In practice, it's a good idea to conform to certain conventions about these titles. The following are suggestions to help minimize confusion. You are not obligated to follow them, but it's a good idea for a number of reasons.

The main reason for conforming to these conventions is because it helps folks find articles. Having a standard set of conventions for titles makes it easier to find an existing article about a person or place that interests you. And if you've written an article, you DO want others to find it. Otherwise, they will probably think there isn't one, write one of their own, and reinvent the wheel, giving you both bother when you try to merge the articles.

Here are some things that you are urged to do.

People articles

The basic format for articles that deal with a single individual is: [[Firstname Middlename Lastname (year-year)]] - with "?" for unknown year, and no spaces on either side of the hyphen, and where:

• Name is, if possible, first name, middle name and surname.
  • Surname must be as at birth (e.g. maiden name), not married name.
  • Middle name is optional, and it is reccommend to use only one if any.
  • If first name or surname is unknown, use "Unknown" instead of leaving it blank or using a question mark.
  • If contributors agree, roman numerals may be included between the name and opening parenthesis; ideally, these should match how the individual was (or is) actually identified.

• YOB & YOD are years of birth and death, respectively. For example: (1795-1856).
  • Use "?" if year of birth or death is unknown; don't use "unk" or "unknown".

Places

If there is possible confusion with places or a surname, add a distinction such as county, state, or country.

References

Can be simple, such as Scharf, 1888. Use of the comma and single date distinguishes references and sources from person pages. (Add a colon and a number to indicate a specific page, as in Scharf, 1888:114 to indicate that the information contained in Scharf, 1888, was found on page 114.)