The Catalog and the Wiki

The Catalog and the Wiki, the Tools Nobody Uses.

Welcome back. These are the two most powerful free tools in genealogy and almost nobody uses them, because they are not on the front of the site and they do not look exciting. They are where the professionals work.

Stop Searching Names for a Minute.

Everything so far has searched for a person. The catalog searches for a place, and asks a completely different question: what records exist at all for this town, this county, this parish. Once you can answer that, you stop guessing about what is missing.

The Catalog Is the Library Index.

FamilySearch holds an enormous library of microfilm and digitised books, and the catalog is its index. Search a place name and you get the list of everything held for it: parish registers, probate, land, tax, cemetery, local histories, court records, by year.

Search by Place, Carefully.

Enter the place as the archive would have known it, usually county then country, and use the period name rather than the modern one. Borders moved, counties split, towns were renamed. The wiki, in a minute, is how you find out what your ancestor's place was called then.

Read the List Like a Menu.

The results are grouped by record type. Expand a group and you see the actual volumes with their year ranges. This is the moment where most people discover that the parish register they assumed was lost has been sitting there, filmed, for sixty years.

Some of It Is Online Right Now.

Each item shows how you can reach it. A camera icon means the images are digitised and you can open them from your chair. Others are film only, or restricted, which the next guide deals with. Start with everything you can open immediately.

Most Catalog Items Are Not Name Searchable.

This is the key point. Catalog items are frequently images with no index, so no name search will ever find them. You open the volume and read it, as covered in the search guide. The catalog tells you which book to open. That is its whole job.

Part 6: Search Like You Mean It

Now the Wiki.

The Research Wiki is a free encyclopedia of how to research any place on earth. Tens of thousands of articles, written by researchers, organised by country, state and county, and it is the thing to read before you waste a weekend.

FamilySearch Research Wiki

Every County Has a Page.

Look up your ancestor's county and you get a page telling you when civil registration started there, which years of census survive, where the probate and land records are held, what burned, and which of it is online. One page can replace a month of flailing.

It Tells You What Was Destroyed.

Half of all brick walls are not brick walls, they are fires, floods and wars. The wiki says so plainly: this courthouse burned in this year, these returns did not survive. Knowing a record is gone is a real answer, and it frees you to look for the substitute.

And It Tells You the Substitute.

When the obvious record is gone, the wiki lists what researchers use instead: tax lists in place of a lost census, church records in place of lost civil registration, land and probate in place of both. That is professional method, written down, for free.

Start With the Research Strategy Section.

Most place pages have a section on where to begin and in what order. Follow it. It was written by people who have researched that county for years, and their order of operations is better than the one you would invent by yourself.

Use the Two Together.

This is the loop. The wiki tells you which record should exist for that place and year. The catalog tells you whether FamilySearch holds it and whether it is online. Then you open it and read. Wiki, catalog, images. That is the whole professional method.

Look up your county, then its catalog.

Take one ancestor's county. Read its wiki page end to end, then search the catalog for that place and read the list. Write down three record sets you did not know existed. We are here when you get stuck.