Familypedia:Community Portal

Welcome! This page is designed to help you navigate Familypedia, the Genealogy Wiki, and make use of its capabilities for displaying and sharing your family heritage. A wiki is a group of linked web pages that anyone who can type can edit. There are over 300,000 operational wikis in the Wikia.org and Fandom.com community on the internet, all built around the same premise of collaborative efforts. You can review existing content, or add new content, depending on your needs and interests. This Wiki is designed to let people create and improve articles about their (and other people's) ancestors and to help find and link records and relatives. You may find information you need about an ancestor in an article that someone else started. If you find that you know something about a person in an existing article, but it isn't already covered, feel free to add that information. No one will mind. In fact, we want you to edit these articles. If you have something new to say about the subject — or maybe you just know how to say something better (typo corrections are always welcomed) — just click the "Edit" tab on the article, and edit away, then "Preview" then "Publish". You can't make an irretrievable mistake; everything is backed up and recoverable in case of need. If you have a query, hit the "Talk" or "Discussion" tab for that page and put the query (and sign it - just by typing "~~~~"). You may even want to create an article yourself. In fact, we hope you will! That's because it's through the creation of such articles that this site grows and becomes a resource of benefit to many. If you follow our simple naming conventions, your page will have a good chance of being found by someone doing a search or browsing the categories. For a new article about an individual, please use the "CREATE OR EDIT ARTICLE" tab in the sidebar or top menu, which leads you to a form where you just fill in boxes and later see some of the data magically reproduced on other pages. This site has three major purposes: It serves as a repository of family history information — facts about people and how to find more facts It allows people to add to that repository by editing existing articles It allows people to create entirely new articles about family members, places, or sources, and connect them into a network of related people, events, and places. The boxes below this one provide help for each of those functions along with ways you may help other researchers. The "Login and registration" section near the end is intended to give users a pointer to the site registration page. Registering is not essential, but it is free and gives you numerous advantages (including greater, not less, anonymity if that's what you want). A good idea is to read the Familypedia:Rules before you go too far.

Finding things on the wiki Search machines Find pages containing specific names of people or places; or years; or any significant word Use the simple search box in the sidebar or near the top - but for a common word it may not be the best route Use the Intermediate search box Use the Advanced Search Each of the above has its advantages and disadvantages. See some additional guidance. Index of surnames Click Category:Surnames to select a surname for which you would like to see an index. Special projects There are also a few "Special Projects" that have been developed around certain research areas. There aren't many of these, but we can expect more to be added in the near future. Anyone can create one. Discussion at Familypedia talk:Portals. The Wigton Walkers Focusing on descendants of John Walker of Wigton, Scotland The Walker ShortList Focusing on Walkers in Southwest VA, Northwest NC, and Northeast TN Project Charlemagne - linking all of Charles the Great's known descendants (which might well include you!) Browse the categories Start at the top non-administrative category and run down any line of subcategories that interests you. Random page Try Special:Random — or the "Random page" link in the sidebar — several times in succession, for a possibly dazzling run all over the place! (Genealogy is fun.)

Login and registration It's not necessary to register with this site to use it. However, there are several advantages to you if you do register. So, if you would like to register, go here. Also, it's a very good idea to log in each time you edit the Wiki (See "Spam" elsewhere on this page.)

Creating articles Help:Articles Add your conference or family reunion to the calendar Naming articles Wanted articles (red links on more than one page: someone has probably considered them worth having articles about - though for some of them a link to Wikipedia may be enough)

Editing articles Help:Editing - starts with the basics Category:Help - the most helpful pages Margie Cowan's Wiki Tips, Tricks, Links

Other things you might like to know Help desk - ask other users for help unless someone else had the same question Watercooler - see what ideas other users are sharing Short guided tour of site Mission and policies Statistics Administrators Deal with spam Detailed recent and historical statistics of pages and contributors