FamilySearch Wiki:Naming a Page or Article

	This page explains a policy, a widely accepted standard that all contributors should normally follow.
Please visit the talk page to add comments or suggestions for further development of the policy.

This page offers policies and best practices in naming wiki articles.

New Wiki Articles

• All new Wiki articles must be cleared with Wiki Administration. The ability of creating a new article will be assigned as needed per projects.

Naming an article

• These instructions are for Wiki Administration and for those working on specific Wiki projects.
• Specific instructions are available regarding new locality Wiki articles.

Concise Article Titles

• Wiki articles are to be concise and accurate to the content on the page. Leave out unnecessary words or punctuation

Capitalization

• Capitalize each word in the title of the article except for:
  • Articles: a, an, the
  • Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, or, for, nor, etc.
  • Prepositions (fewer than five letters): on, at, to, from, by, etc.
• Do not use all uppercase letters - use initial caps on each word in a title except when this conflicts with place naming standards or grammar rules.

Correct

Census Records of the United States

Incorrect

CENSUS RECORDS OF THE UNITED STATES

Things to Avoid

• Avoid the use of pronouns and descriptive adjectives
• Do not start article names with "A," "The," or "An" if possible
• Avoid characters such as / + { } [ ] ( )
• Avoid abbreviations, acronyms, and postal codes
• Replace "&" with "and" unless it is part of a formal name

Gender Neutral

Article names should be gender neutral.

Ambiguous Titles

FamilySearch Wiki is international, so any article with a general title such as "Census" should really cover the entire globe. On occasion, the preferred name for an article, while correct, may be ambiguous. In these cases the practice is to either extend the article title with more specific information or add a term in parenthesis after the article title, so that the article name is unambiguous. If you are writing an article which applies to one locality only, then this should be made clear in the name of the article, such as Censuses in England or Scottish Census.

Naming Geographical Wiki Articles

Adding "Genealogy" to title

To improve the rankings of wiki articles in Google and other search engines, the word, "Genealogy" is added to the end of all geographical wiki article titles. A geographical topic page, such as Alabama Probate Records, should not have the word, genealogy added to its title.

Examples

Finland Genealogy

Holwell, Bedfordshire Genealogy

No Abbreviations

Do not use abbreviations in naming a place.

Correct

Montgomery County, Maryland Genealogy

Incorrect

Montgomery Co., MD Genealogy

Ascending order of jurisdictions

When adding place names to article titles, add jurisdictions in ascending order (smallest to largest).

Correct

Rockville, Montgomery County, Maryland Genealogy

Incorrect

Maryland, Montgomery County, Rockville Genealogy

Exceptions

Articles about FamilySearch Historical Record Collections

Diacritics

Diacritics should not be used in the title of a locality article unless there is no English version of the country or locality. For example, use Mexico, not México. The version of the country name in its native tongue using diacritics when applicable should be included at the top of the article page to allow the Wiki search engine to retrieve the correct page for the user.

Correct

Mexico Genealogy

Incorrect

México Genealogy

Exceptions

When English version of the locality is not known, use the spelling and diacritics found in the native tongue of the country.

Proper use of the diacritics can be found in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog.

Country names in English

Use the form of a current country's name as it appears in the CIA World Factbook.

Locality articles should only contain the English form of the country in the title and should not include diacritics. The version of the country name in it's native tongue using diacritics when applicable should be included at the top of the article page to allow the Wiki search engine to retrieve the correct page for the user. Redirects can also be made for incorrectly titled locality articles already found in the Wiki.

Correct

Bavaria, Germany Genealogy

Incorrect

Bayern, Germany Genealogy

When a widely accepted English name, exists for a former country or empire, we should use it. For example, New Spain rather than Virreinato de Nueva España, Ottoman Empire rather than دولتْ علیّه عثمانیّه or Osmanlı İmparatorluğu.

Country Name vs. Nationality

Any locality Wiki pages and locality topic pages should only include the country name and not the nationality in the title. For example, it is Mexico Probate Records not Mexican Probate Records. Nationality can be used in other situations such as articles about immigration. For example, Chinese in America.

Disambiguation

It is often the case that the same geographic place-name will apply to more than one place, or to a place and to other things of interest to genealogists such as a tribe or language; in either case a disambiguation page will be necessary and the articles about locations need to be more specific by adding all jurisdictions to the title. See FamilySearch Wiki:Disambiguation.

Administrative sub-divisions

Names of classes of places should follow English grammar rules. In particular, when dealing with administrative subdivisions, we write of "United States counties" and "Cook County, Illinois," or of "Russian oblasts" and the "Moscow Oblast," but we use "Chinese and Roman provinces," not "Chinese sheng" or "Roman provinciae."

Special Guidelines by Country

United States

• For county and state pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

Alabama, United States Genealogy

Warren County, Ohio Genealogy

• For towns/cities pages, include the county and the state.

Correct

Chicago, Cook County, Illinois Genealogy

Portland, Cumberland County, Maine Genealogy

• Always use “County” when describing a United States county in an article name.

Exceptions

Louisiana uses "Parishes" instead of counties and Alaska uses "Boroughs."

• Do not use "United States" in the title of town or county wiki articles.

Correct

Charleston, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi Genealogy

Lincoln County, Montana Genealogy

Incorrect

Charleston, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States Genealogy

Lincoln County, Montana, United States Genealogy

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England, Scotland, Wales

• For county pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

Bedfordshire, England Genealogy

Dunbartonshire, Scotland Genealogy

• For parishes, list three jurisdictions.

Correct

Aberdour, Fife, Scotland Genealogy

St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch Haw, London, England Genealogy

Englefield, Berkshire, England Genealogy

Incorrect

Aberdour, Fife Genealogy

St Mary Woolnoth with St Mary Woolchurch Haw, London Genealogy

Englefield, Berkshire Genealogy

• Do not use the word, County in naming the article

Exceptions

County Durham

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Canada

• For province pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

Alberta, Canada Genealogy

• For county pages, list three jurisdictions.

Correct

Essex County, Ontario, Canada Genealogy

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Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland

• For county pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

Jämtland County, Sweden Genealogy

Maribo County, Denmark Genealogy

• For parish/city pages, list three jurisdictions

Correct

Hallen, Jämtland County, Sweden Genealogy

Holeby, Maribo County, Denmark Genealogy

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Switzerland

• For canton pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

Genève Canton, Switzerland Genealogy

• For parish/city pages, list three jurisdictions

Correct

Bergdietikon, Aargau Canton, Switzerland Genealogy

• Always use “Canton” when describing an Switzerland Canton.

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Germany

• For Kreis/Landkreis, list three jurisdictions.

Correct

Höxter, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Genealogy

• For parish/city pages, list four jurisdictions including the Kreis/Landkreis

Correct

Sandebeck, Höxter, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany Genealogy

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Ireland

• For county pages, list two jurisdictions.

Correct

County Kerry, Ireland Genealogy

• For parish/city pages, list three jurisdictions including the type of parish.

Correct

Aghadoe Civil Parish, County Kerry, Ireland Genealogy

• Always use “County” before the county name when describing an Irish county.

Exceptions

King's County and Queen's County

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Mexico

• Do not include any jurisdiction names (state) in the title of the articles.

Correct

Baja California, Mexico Genealogy

Calotmul, Noreste, Yucatán, Mexico Genealogy

Incorrect

Baja California State, Mexico Genealogy

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Argentina, Spain, Austria, France and Other Countries in the Wiki

• Include the country in all locality article titles

Correct

Alagoas, Brazil Genealogy

Penang, Malaysia Genealogy

Chaco, Argentina Genealogy

Bukovina, Austria Genealogy

Nazca, Ica, Peru Genealogy

Incorrect

Alagoas Genealogy

Bukovina Genealogy

• Do not list the type of jurisdiction in the name of the article.

Correct

Ain, France Genealogy

Incorrect

Ain Department, France Genealogy

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