Creating or Patrolling Online Genealogy Records Pages

What We Put On an Online Genealogy Record Page

 1. Databases with actual people data

Every link should be an online databse that our users can search for possible names, dates, or places to add to their family histores. Links to library records or books/CD ROMs/etc. are not appropriate. It must be a readable database. For example:

Indexed, digitized, or transcribed parish registers listing christenings, marriages, and burials
Indexes or original civil birth, marriage, divorce, or death records
Digitized images of census records or indexed transcriptions of them
Transcribed or photographed cemetery records
Military records--draft, enlistment, pensions, deaths
Newspapers, digitized and/or indexed, especially obituary notices
Immigration records: shipping lists, Ellis Island arrivals

Passport applications, citizenship records, petitions for naturalization
Wills, administrations, probate documents
Voting registration
Land records and deeds
Collections of biography
Local histories with biography collections
Directories

2. Each link has to cover the whole geographical area, or a very large chunk (larger than one parish or city.)

3. The only exception is maps/gazetteers—something that will aid in finding a locality.

What We Don’t Put On Online Genealogy Records Pages

How-to articles
Methods and strategies
Information about social customs
History that doesn’t include biography
Long lists of “great” links
Chats, forums, bogs
Societies, except membership societies with pedigree databases
Extremely small collections

Sources We Use to Find Links

1. FamilySearch Historical Collection

2. Links in Wiki Articles

3. Major Websites:

Ancestry.com

findmypast.com

MyHeritage.com

4. Cyndi’s List—not everything she has. Our requirements are more specialized.

5. Google main topics—Keywords:

Genealogy

Online database

Birth records, death records, marriage records

Church records

Census

Cemetery records

Wills and probate

6. E-Book Collections, using the same keywords:

Hathitrust

Internet Archives

Google Books

7. FamilySearch Library Online

Patrolling Issues—Watch for These Errors.=

A link that is not a database of names of people.
Information for a smaller geographic area.
A non-standard sub-topic. Or no sub-topic.
A link that doesn’t lead immediately to the search page of the named collection
No index status: index and images, images only, incomplete
Incomplete.
($)
Other lengthy explanatory remarks.