Let’s Talk About….FamilySearch WIKI!


Have you accessed the wonderful, fantastic, FREE resource that is the FamilySearch WIKI? When you click to www.familysearch.org/WIKI this is the page that opens up to you. From this menu, you can “order” among over 106,000 articles……… articles about places all over the world, records of all types, and what records can be found where. When my Puerto Rican friend, Leticia, wanted help with her family tree, the first thing I did was to go to the WIKI and print out all the pages of tips, helps and websites. 

Danielle Batson at the 2023 RootsTech, gave these tips in her talk:

  • “The WIKI is your online genealogy guide linking you to all known records of the entire world!”  How can you top that??
  • WIKI is constantly adding newly found links/sites.
  • WIKI offer strategy papers.
  • Search by locality, she said. “That’s where things happen!”
  • Search top-down…. ie, start with Denmark or Virginia and then work your way down through the menu.
  • Realize that some countries (“Bulgaria for instance”) hasn’t as many records.
  • Don’t over look the sidebar with links to other related records.
  • You can also join a community group for your target area and ask locality-specific questions.
  • Wiki offers Guided Research….. Wiki offers guides to where you might look next.
  • You can book your free Virtual Genealogy consultation, a 20-minute time one-on-one with a FamilySearch specialist for that area or type of record. 
  • And this, the best words she said were these:

“The FamilySearch WII is your researchers’ Golden Ticket!”