How up to date is the FamilySearch Research Wiki?

 

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Genealogy

The FamilySearch.org Research Wiki is one of the most valuable genealogical resources currently available. With more than 100,000 articles, it covers more information than can easily be comprehended. It was designed as a "wiki" for the purpose of allowing users to create and edit information. However, it has been a long time since the days when any interested contributor was allowed to edit information. In July 2024, all the remaining long-time editors were blocked from further edits. I speculate that FamilySearch is working on adding an AI search capability to the wiki and need to "freeze" the wiki while that development goes on. Meanwhile, the articles are aging rapidly. Of course, not all the wiki is affected by the passage of time. But some of the major articles about specific countries are basically become out of date due to both historical and technological changes. Here is an example from the article on England and the subsequent articles linked to the main England page. See link above.

There is a page in the wiki that explains much of what is outlined below but the page has very few useful links and cannot easily be found. See https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/England_Jurisdictions 

There are 40 counties in this list. Currently, there are 48 counties in England. The statement in the text before the county list states that "The England counties listed below are based on historic boundaries pre-1974." Some of these counties no longer exist. As of 2025, there are 48 administrative counties in England. Some of these as listed above are purely traditional and do not appear in the current list. These missing counties include Cumberland, Huntingdonshire, London, Middlesex, Sussex, Westmorland, and Yorkshire.

These current counties are not separate articles or in the list above from the Research Wiki: Bristol, City of London, Cumbria, East Riding of Yorkshire, East Sussex, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Isle of Wight, Merseyside, North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands, West Sussex, and West Yorkshire. 

In 1851, England had 40 counties for the purposes of census reporting, which were known as "registration counties". From 1851 to 1911, the "registration counties" were used for census reporting and administrative purposes. It's important to note that there are different definitions of "county" in England today: there are ceremonial counties (48), metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties for local government (84), and historic counties (39). The England 1851 map shown above is based on the 40 registration counties. 

Now the issue with these differing lists is that each of current 48 counties has its own archives and family history resources. Some of the administrative counties, such as the Isle of Wight, have been a county since 1890. See https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Isle_of_Wight,_England_Genealogy But some of the other counties do not have separate pages. 

This is just one example of the difficulty of administering and maintaining a collection of over 100,000 articles without the help of a willing and able community. For whatever reason, the editing of the Research Wiki has been limited to those inside FamilySearch. I might mention that most of the information about the Canadian Provinces is also out of date. 

Some of the countries of the world, such as Chechnya, are almost completely missing from the Research Wiki. 

I realize that traditionally, genealogists record events and sources with the places as they were at the time of the events in an ancestor's life. When changes occur, the name of the place changes. This means that without moving some of my ancestors' places entries change. The main challenge illustrated with my example above about England is locating the present jurisdiction so that a search can be made in the historical jurisdiction. The best example of this challenge is Yorkshire County, England, which is now North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire and East Riding of Yorkshire. 

It will be a great loss to the genealogical community of the Research Wiki continues to go further out of date.