Australia, Profile Standards

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Standards

The Australia Project follows Wikitree's Styles and Standards.

• When creating a profile ensure that the names you enter are correct, especially with respect to the Last Name at Birth (LNAB), and other names. The name field guidelines provide detailed information for each name field.
• Dates should be as precise as possible. If you are unable to confirm an exact date an estimate is acceptable with an explanation in the biography.
• Locations should not include a house number, street address, building name, church, hospital, or similar. Those belong in the biography text. Locations should be limited to town/city (when known), state, and country. (While other countries use "shires", "parishes", and "counties", this is not how Australian locations are generally known. Electoral districts, also, do not belong in the location fields.
• Blocks of text should not be copied to a profile from another website. See the help pages for copying text and copying from Wikipedia. Avoid copying newspaper articles in full, a summary with a link to Trove (if available) is more appropriate.
• Images should be relevant to the profile and must not infringe copyright. Wikimedia Commons is one of many places where you can find images to use on the profile. Each image has information on if and how you can use the image and download options. Always choose the highest resolution available, Wikitree will re-size the image to a thumbnail, profile photo or background.
• Do not use the middle name field or other nickname field for descriptive placeholders (such as an occupation or location) unless that person would have been well known by such a description and it is documented in a source.
• Only use Senior and Junior if the people themselves used that designation and it is documented in a source.
• Always write biographies in the third person. Wikitree is edited by many people and thus references such as I, me, we, etc have no relevance.
  • An exception to this is when adding Research Notes, where it is acceptable to say "I looked here", "This is where my research led me", and similar. When adding Research Notes that are specific to your research, remember to "sign" your note(s) using four ~ tildes. This will automatically add your user ID-# and the time in UTC.
• Please keep formatting clear and simple. Wikitree formatting is preferred. See Editing Tips. Please avoid using html formatting.

Sources

Types of Sources

A source is not necessarily evidence. Not all sources are equal with respect to accuracy, nor should a source be automatically assumed to be evidence. See this Evidence Explained^[1] lesson for a discussion of sources, information, evidence and proof and Evaluate the Evidence from Familysearch for more detailed information on evaluating sources.^[2]

Primary – a source created at or near the time of the event. Some examples include birth, death or marriage certificates or entries in parish registers or civil records, probated wills, land transaction documents, census records, immigration records, educational registers etc. Original documents are not necessarily 'pure' primary sources. For example with a death certificate some elements of the document may be considered primary sources such as the date and place of death, but information supplied by an informant is a secondary source based on memory or information supplied by other parties.
Secondary – these sources are generally created from primary sources but may also include discussions about/or refer to other secondary sources. Examples include books, journal articles, newspapers.
Tertiary – sources which are a summary or aggregation of information usually from secondary and sometimes primary sources. Typical examples include dictionaries, encyclopedias, websites.

What should not be considered a reliable source?

• User created trees - Ancestry, geni, MyHeritage, Familysearch trees etc
• Genealogy websites, blogs
• Find a Grave entries that have no headstone or memorial photo or a transcription should not be used as a source.
• Unsourced family histories

Australian examples:

• (Any state) BDM index, without the index number to enable anyone to find the entry.
• "Victorian Federation Index 1889-1901" or similar, without the details for the entry for the profile.
• https://australianroyalty.net.au/ This is good as a guide but should not be referenced as a source. If you find an entry with a source, seek and check that source and use it as your reference. If the entry is not sourced you can reference it in a 'Research Notes' section, noting that it is unsourced information.

See Sources FAQ for more on reliable sources.

Using Sources

Citations

Inline citations are preferred whenever possible. Information entered in the data fields should be referenced in the biography so it is clear where the evidence was sourced.

If using bulleted citations, please arrange them in chronological order so they make sense with the biographical events.

See Sources for more information on inline sources and Australia Sources and Citations for examples.