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Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy

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WikiProject Genealogy
Founded 2 December 2006
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The WikiProject for Genealogy aims to improve genealogy-related articles and to standardize and verify genealogical information on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia is not and never was intended as a genealogy software, this area may still be further improved. Nearly all royalty articles include a section of brief ancestry, as well as a list of spouse(s) and issue. This practice may possibly be extended outside the bounds of royalty and aristocracy where encyclopedically relevant, while keeping within Wikipedia's notability and verifiability standards.

This project covers all Wikipedia articles related to the subject of genealogy, including businesses, individuals, websites, software, etc. that are involved in the genealogical field. It also covers any genealogical information on notable families, usually formatted as family tree charts, ahnentafel pedigree charts, or lists. Templates to create family trees and ahnentafels are also in the scope of this WikiProject.

Goals

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When editing genealogy-related articles and genealogical information on Wikipedia, keep in mind the following:

If you have questions about how these guidelines relate to an article you are editing, post your questions on the article's talk page or on this WikiProject's talk page.

See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies

Things you can do

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The current Genealogy WikiProject Collaboration is:
Genealogy.

Please help improve the article to good article standards!

  • Improve and harmonise contents presentation within family articles

Assessment

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To assess articles, use the WikiProject Genealogy banner on the article's talk page.

  • Under class, give the article a quality rating: FA, FL, A, GA, B, C, Start, Stub, List, or NA
  • Under priority, give the article a priority/importance rating: Top, High, Mid, Low

For example, a good article of high importance will use this code: 

{{WikiProject Genealogy |class=GA |priority=high }}
Genealogy articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA ??? Total
FA 1 1
FL 1 1
GA 1 1 2 4
B 5 5 16 24 1 51
C 3 13 40 106 22 184
Start 2 8 33 201 63 307
Stub 2 7 68 26 103
List 6 13 87 1 19 126
Category 2,099 2,099
Disambig 2 2
Project 1 22 23
Template 1 2 601 604
NA 2 21 35 58
Other 17 17
Assessed 10 37 112 512 2,777 132 3,580
Unassessed 23 23
Total 10 37 112 512 2,777 155 3,603
WikiWork factors (?) ω = 3,050 Ω = 4.69

Importance scale

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Priority must be regarded as a relative term. If priority values are applied within this project, these only reflect the perceived importance to this project. An article judged to be "Top-Class" in one context may be only "Mid-Class" in another project. The criteria used for rating article priority are not meant to be an absolute or canonical view of how significant the topic is. Rather, they attempt to gauge the probability of the average reader of Wikipedia needing to look up the topic (and thus the immediate need to have a suitably well-written article on it).

WikiProject article importance scheme
Importance Criteria Example
 Top Subject is extremely important, even crucial, to its specific field. Reserved for subjects that have achieved international notability within their field. Genealogy, Surname, Royal family
 High Subject is extremely notable, but has not achieved international notability, or is only notable within a particular continent. FamilySearch, Mayflower Society, Society of Genealogists
 Mid Subject is only notable within its particular field or subject and has achieved notability in a particular place or area. Genealogical Proof Standard, Who Do You Think You Are?, Whakapapa
 Low Subject is not particularly notable or significant even within its field of study. It may only be included to cover a specific part of a notable article. Ji (surname 姞)
 NA Subject importance is not applicable. Generally applies to non-article pages such as redirects, categories, templates, etc. Template:Ahnentafel
 ??? Subject importance has not yet been assessed. Category:Unknown-importance Genealogy articles

Quality scale

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WikiProject content quality grading scheme
Class Criteria Reader's experience Editing suggestions Example
 FA The article has attained featured article status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured article candidates.
More detailed criteria
The article meets the featured article criteria:

A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes.

  1. It is:
    1. well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard;
    2. comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
    3. well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;
    4. neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias;
    5. stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process; and
    6. compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing.
  2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
    1. a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
    2. appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and
    3. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
  3. Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
  4. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate.
 Professional, outstanding, and thorough; a definitive source for encyclopedic information. No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible. Cleopatra
(as of June 2018)
 FL The article has attained featured list status by passing an in-depth examination by impartial reviewers from WP:Featured list candidates.
More detailed criteria
The article meets the featured list criteria:
  1. Prose. It features professional standards of writing.
  2. Lead. It has an engaging lead that introduces the subject and defines the scope and inclusion criteria.
  3. Comprehensiveness.
  4. Structure. It is easy to navigate and includes, where helpful, section headings and table sort facilities.
  5. Style. It complies with the Manual of Style and its supplementary pages.
  6. Stability. It is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured list process.
 Professional standard; it comprehensively covers the defined scope, usually providing a complete set of items, and has annotations that provide useful and appropriate information about those items. No further content additions should be necessary unless new information becomes available; further improvements to the prose quality are often possible. List of dates predicted for apocalyptic events
(as of May 2018)
 A The article is well organized and essentially complete, having been examined by impartial reviewers from a WikiProject or elsewhere. Good article status is not a requirement for A-Class.
More detailed criteria
The article meets the A-Class criteria:
Provides a well-written, clear and complete description of the topic, as described in Wikipedia:Article development. It should be of a length suitable for the subject, appropriately structured, and be well referenced by a broad array of reliable sources. It should be well illustrated, with no copyright problems. Only minor style issues and other details need to be addressed before submission as a featured article candidate. See the A-Class assessment departments of some of the larger WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Military history).
 Very useful to readers. A fairly complete treatment of the subject. A non-expert in the subject would typically find nothing wanting. Expert knowledge may be needed to tweak the article, and style problems may need solving. WP:Peer review may help. Battle of Nam River
(as of June 2014)
 GA The article meets all of the good article criteria, and has been examined by one or more impartial reviewers from WP:Good article nominations.
More detailed criteria
A good article is:
  1. Well-written:
    1. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct; and
    2. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.
  2. Verifiable with no original research:
    1. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;
    2. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose);
    3. it contains no original research; and
    4. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
  3. Broad in its coverage:
    1. it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and
    2. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
  6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
    1. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content; and
    2. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
 Useful to nearly all readers, with no obvious problems; approaching (though not necessarily equalling) the quality of a professional publication. Some editing by subject and style experts is helpful; comparison with an existing featured article on a similar topic may highlight areas where content is weak or missing. Discovery of the neutron
(as of April 2019)
B The article meets all of the B-Class criteria. It is mostly complete and does not have major problems, but requires some further work to reach good article standards.
More detailed criteria
  1. The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has reliable sources, and any important or controversial material which is likely to be challenged is cited. Any format of inline citation is acceptable: the use of <ref> tags and citation templates such as {{cite web}} is optional.
  2. The article reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain obvious omissions or inaccuracies. It contains a large proportion of the material necessary for an A-Class article, although some sections may need expansion, and some less important topics may be missing.
  3. The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind.
  4. The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly, but does not need to be of the standard of featured articles. The Manual of Style does not need to be followed rigorously.
  5. The article contains supporting materials where appropriate. Illustrations are encouraged, though not required. Diagrams, an infobox etc. should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content.
  6. The article presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. It is written with as broad an audience in mind as possible. The article should not assume unnecessary technical background and technical terms should be explained or avoided where possible.
 Readers are not left wanting, although the content may not be complete enough to satisfy a serious student or researcher. A few aspects of content and style need to be addressed. Expert knowledge may be needed. The inclusion of supporting materials should be considered if practical, and the article checked for general compliance with the Manual of Style and related style guidelines. Psychology
(as of January 2024)
C The article is substantial but is still missing important content or contains irrelevant material. The article should have some references to reliable sources, but may still have significant problems or require substantial cleanup.
More detailed criteria
The article cites more than one reliable source and is better developed in style, structure, and quality than Start-Class, but it fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements, or need editing for clarity, balance, or flow.
 Useful to a casual reader, but would not provide a complete picture for even a moderately detailed study. Considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content and solve cleanup problems. Wing
(as of June 2018)
Start An article that is developing but still quite incomplete. It may or may not cite adequate reliable sources.
More detailed criteria
The article has a meaningful amount of good content, but it is still weak in many areas. The article has one or more of the following:
  • A useful picture or graphic
  • Multiple links that help explain or illustrate the topic
  • A subheading that fully treats an element of the topic
  • Multiple subheadings that indicate material that could be added to complete the article
 Provides some meaningful content, but most readers will need more. Providing references to reliable sources should come first; the article also needs substantial improvement in content and organisation. Also improve the grammar, spelling, writing style and improve the jargon use. Ball
(as of September 2014)
Stub A very basic description of the topic. Meets none of the Start-Class criteria. Provides very little meaningful content; may be little more than a dictionary definition. Readers probably see insufficiently developed features of the topic and may not see how the features of the topic are significant. Any editing or additional material can be helpful. The provision of meaningful content should be a priority. The best solution for a Stub-class Article to step up to a Start-class Article is to add in referenced reasons of why the topic is significant. Lineage (anthropology)
(as of December 2014)
List Meets the criteria of a stand-alone list or set index article, which is an article that contains primarily a list, usually consisting of links to articles in a particular subject area. There is no set format for a list, but its organization should be logical and useful to the reader. Lists should be lists of live links to Wikipedia articles, appropriately named and organized. List of literary movements
??? Article quality has not yet been assessed. Articles for which a valid quality rating has not yet been provided are listed in this category. A quality parameter should be assigned according to the assessment department of the WikiProject. Category:Unassessed Genealogy articles

Article Alerts

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Templates

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Main page: Help:Family trees
See also: Category:Genealogy templates

The most common template used for displaying ancestry trees is {{Ahnentafel}} (for what the German word Ahnentafel means see the Wikipedia article "Ahnentafel"). For help on how to use {{Ahnentafel}} and other templates and methods that are available for displaying family/ancestory trees see Help:Family trees and the documentation within the templates.

Current template discussions

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Place below any templates that are potentially useful for members of this project and that are currently the subject of a discussion (most recent first):

Wikidata equivalent

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A Wikidata ancestry equivalent similar to WikiTree, for a language independent encyclopedically relevant database, likely containing mostly monarchs and such. Thus, each generation where ancestry is deemed relevant in biographical articles would not need a complete reformatting, while access and implementation over the language board would be facilitated. Naturally, if applied, a new template rendering from this wikidata family tree would be needed. Also, precaution of personal integrity would be a main issue.

Members

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See also: Wikipedia:WikiProject Genealogy/Mailing list

Please feel free to add your name to this list if you would like to join this project. Currently active participants are also listed here.

The following are registered members of this WikiProject:

Userbox

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This user is a participant in Wikiproject Genealogy.

Feel free to insert the Template:User WikiProject Genealogy on your user page with the following code: {{User WikiProject Genealogy}}.

See also

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WikiProject Biography
General information
Announcements
Departments
Work groups and subprojects
Things you can do
Biography article statistics

Wikimedia genealogy projects

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Partner projects

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Shortcut
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Tools

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A list of articles needing cleanup associated with this project is available. See also the tool's wiki page and the index of WikiProjects.

Main tool page: toolserver.org
  • Reflinks - Edits bare references - adds title/dates etc. to bare references
  • Checklinks - Edit and repair external links
  • Dab solver - Quickly resolve ambiguous links.
  • Peer reviewer - Provides hints and suggestion to improving articles.

Genealogy databases

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