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Robin R. Foster
Researchers have a new resource, FamilySearch Wiki, where they can access to help them locate resources to learn more about ancestors. This wiki is an online encyclopedia that is being built by the genealogical community made up of both professional genealogists and enthusiasts.
As the community contributes to this tool, it will help save researchers time and much frustration that comes from being unfamiliar with historical collections available in different localities.
The easiest way to incorporate using the wiki is to go wiki.familysearch.org and enter the locality where your ancestor lived to find known resources. For example, entering “Richland County, South Carolina,” brings up the following results: Click here. Selecting the first result will take you to the page where you will have immediate access to topics listed such as, Vital Records, Family Histories, Probate, and many more.
If you broaden your search, you may discover additional resources. For example, try searching on the state where your ancestor lived. A state search will connect you to resources that were generated on the state level. Currently, there are no resources listed under “Vital Records” for Richland County, however, if you search “South Carolina,” you will find a number of resources to document birth, marriage, and death.
Please take the opportunity to listen to the video presentation which accompanies this article. It will help you with locating death records by county or state. If boundaries in a state are divided into parishes, search by parish and state. If you search for “Iberia Parish, Louisiana” you would be able to link to resources for that parish: See results.
As you find success in locating resources, remember to include citations. "When researching your family it is very important that you keep track of every piece of information. This is important both as a means of verifying or "proving" your data and also as a way for you or other researchers to go back to that source when future research leads to information which conflicts with your original assumption. In genealogy research, any statement of fact, whether it is a birth date or an ancestor's surname, must carry its own individual source," according to Kimberly Powell, About.com Guide. See Cite Your Genealogy Sources.
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