Help:Editing

Family Pages

The Category:Family page gives an overview of what these pages are for:

Pages describing the history of a specific family. These pages are primarily concerned with events occurring in the parents' household(s) between their marriage and their death. They may also include details of the parents' childhoods, the children's lives, and notable descendants.

Where there are multiple sets of parents (due to death, divorce, etc.), the page typically includes details about all sets of parents; if this is infeasible, multiple family pages may exist.

Page names refer to a "primary" couple, typically the biological parents of a child of interest. The names used are a short form of the names by which the couple would have been known contemporarily.

Aliases may exist for alternate forms of the couple's name (e.g., if a person commonly uses a nickname, or there are multiple couples) and as a shortcut from the name of just one parent.

Overview

What families can have a page? Broadly, any direct-line ancestors of Jim and Ruth Smith. These ancestors are not necessarily biological—for example, ancestors of a notable step-parent may be included. The primary focus is on 19th- and 20th-century families, because reliable, detailed earlier records are hard to find, and because beyond 5 or 6 generations, the number of branches is unwieldy. But if enough details can be found, an older family may occasionally be included. Descendants of ancestors (cousins, etc.) should not get their own pages, but can be discussed briefly on the shared ancestor's page.

Parents. The term parent is used broadly on a family page. A couple is any pair of people who married, cohabited as a married couple, had a child together, or raised a child together. Usually, the "primary" parents of a family are the couple that were biological parents of a specific (direct-ancestor) child. More often than not, at least one parent formed multiple couples over his or her lifetime. If so, former spouses, step-parents, polygamous spouses, etc., are considered "parents" as well. Their other spouses are also included, and so on.

Theoretically, this chain of related couples could go on forever, but it's usually manageable. If necessary, the family can be split into multiple pages (see below).

In cases in which a child has two unrelated sets of parents (biological and adoptive, say) the families should have two independent pages.

In exceptional circumstances, one of the biological parents may not be known, or may have had no role in the child's life. If so, it may be appropriate to choose a different couple as the primary parents, or only consider a single parent to be "primary". If, however, a parent is not known due simply to a lack of historical records, it's usually best to avoid creating a family page at all until further research can be done.

Splitting a page. If the set of parents is too large, or the real-life relationship between different members of the "family" is too tenuous, the family can be split across two or more pages. In doing so, you need to decide which couples will be covered on each page—every couple should belong to exactly one page. On the other hand, there will always be one person who appears as a parent in both families. Typically, this person will bridge two otherwise unrelated groups of people—for example, a father who married into another family after all his children were grown.

Page names. The name of a family page consists of the names of the primary parents, the father listed first, with the word "and" between the two names. In the usual case in which the couple shares a surname, that name appears just once, after the mother's name ("Joel and Carol Taylor"); if not, both surnames appear ("Joel Taylor and Carol Miller").

Ideally, the names used should represent how the individuals were commonly referred to when they were a couple. In the absence of further information, that means middle names and maiden names are left off. A middle name or a nickname should be used in place of the first name if that is the name by which the person was usually referred.

In the exceptional case that there is only one primary parent, that person's short name can be used as the page name.

Page Organization

A typical family page looks like this:

{{Family
 | Father Birth Name: FAMILYSEARCH-ID
 | Mother Birth Name: FAMILYSEARCH-ID
 | grandparent family=Father Parents Page Name; Mother Parents Page Name
 | child family=Child Page Name
 | marriage year=NNNN
 | parent birth year=NNNN
 | parent death year=NNNN
 | residence=First Residence Locale; Second Residence Locale
 }}
 
 == Parents' Childhood ==

 Summary of father's childhood.

 Summary of mother's childhood.

 == Married Life ==
 
 Overview of this time period.

 {{Timeline
 | NNNN: Event description
 | NNNN: Event description
 | NNNN: Event description
 }}

 Details about this time period.

 == Parent Name's Later Life ==

 Overview of this time period.

 {{Timeline
 | NNNN: Event description
 | NNNN: Event description
 | NNNN: Event description
 }}

 Details about this time period.

 {{Family Footer}}

Grandparent families. These are the families in which this page's parents were born or grew up. Not every parent's childhood family needs to be listed, but as a minimum the primary parents' families should appear (if they are known). If there is interest in researching other lines (such as the parents of a stepmother), those families may also appear. If a grandparent's name is not currently known, it's usually best not to list that grandparent family until further research can be done.

Redirects

Redirects should be created for all names which might be used to refer to any of the family's parent couples, or to a parent individually. This includes:

• The common name of any additional couples, using the page name format ("Steve and Carol Wilson").
• Any variations on a couple's name, such as using a first name rather than a nickname ("Steven and Carol Wilson"). Maiden names are not used here, unless that name was used when they were a couple.
• The full birth name of each parent ("Joel David Taylor", "Carol Ann Miller", "Steven Roy Wilson").
• Any other full names of a parent later in life ("Carol Ann Taylor", "Carol Ann Wilson").
• The short form(s) of each parent's name ("Joel Taylor", "Steve Wilson", "Steven Wilson", "Carol Miller", "Carol Taylor", "Carol Wilson").

Redirects should also be created for alternate spellings of all of the above—for example, if a name has an accent (Adèle), an unaccented spelling should also be used (Adele). Redirects are usually not created for misspellings, unless those misspellings are extremely common or there is legitimate uncertainty about the proper spelling.

Redirects are not created from children's names.