search-familysearch-wiki

name: search-familysearch-wiki model: claude-sonnet-4-6 description: >- Search the FamilySearch Research Wiki for genealogy research guidance and save the findings as a markdown file in the user's working folder. Use when the user asks to "search the FamilySearch wiki", "check the FS research wiki", OR asks any how-to genealogy research question such as "how do I find marriage records", "how do I find death records", "how do I find census records", "how do I find military records", "how do I find land records", "how do I find probate records", "how do I find church records", "how do I find immigration records", or asks how to research ancestors from a specific country or region, or how to use a FamilySearch resource. Always use this skill for any "how do I find [record type]" question even when the user does not explicitly name the FamilySearch wiki — do not answer from training knowledge. Do NOT use when the user explicitly names Wikipedia (use search-wikipedia), wants a comprehensive locality records-availability guide (use locality-guide — typical phrasings: "what records exist for [place]", "where are records held for [place]", "what genealogy records are available for [county/state/country]"), or wants narrative historical background such as migration patterns or boundary changes (use historical-context). allowed-tools: - wiki_search

Narration: Read researcher_profile.narration_guidance from research.json and apply it as your narration style for this invocation. If absent, default to a one-line preamble per action.

Searches the FamilySearch Research Wiki — the FamilySearch-curated genealogy reference — and saves the guidance as a markdown file. The FamilySearch Wiki covers genealogical research methods better than Wikipedia: how to find a record type, what records a jurisdiction holds, how to use a repository. For general-encyclopedia topics (people, places, events), use the search-wikipedia skill instead.

What to do

Always search the FamilySearch Wiki first. Never answer a genealogy research question from your training knowledge — the wiki provides current, sourced guidance that you must retrieve. Even if you believe you know the answer, call the tool and synthesize only from what it returns.

When the user asks a genealogy research question, or asks to search the FamilySearch wiki:

Call the wiki_search MCP tool, passing the user's research question as the query parameter. Phrase it as a natural-language question (e.g. "How do I find Italian birth records?").
The tool returns { query, results, ... }. Each entry in results has page_title, section_heading, chunk_text, and source_url, ranked by relevance.
If results is empty, tell the user no wiki guidance was found and stop — do not save a file.
Read and fill templates/wiki-search-summary.md. Actually invoke the file-write tool to save it (don't just describe the save) as <topic-slug>.md in the user's working folder.
- <topic-slug>: extract the core noun phrase from the user's question — the record type and any qualifying jurisdiction/origin — and skip leading verbs/qualifiers like "how to use", "search for", "find", "tracing". Lowercase + hyphens, no leading/trailing hyphens. Examples: "how to use census records to trace my family" → census-records.md; "How do I find Italian birth records?" → italian-birth-records.md; "How do I find German church records?" → german-church-records.md.
- Summary: synthesize only from chunk_text — every sentence must trace to a specific chunk. Do NOT add facts (dates, repository names, URLs), do NOT interpret beyond the text (e.g., what a record's contents "frequently imply" or "point to"), do NOT strengthen the source's wording. Plain prose paragraphs only; no lists, sub-headers, or URLs in the body.
- Sources: one bullet per result — - [page_title — section_heading](source_url) — using the exact values from the tool response.
Tell the user the filename. Keep it brief.

For general-encyclopedia topics use search-wikipedia; for a locality records-availability survey use locality-guide; for migration patterns or narrative history use historical-context.

Re-invocation behavior

Writes: a single <topic-slug>.md file in the user's working folder. Does not write research.json or tree.gedcomx.json.

On repeat invocation: if the same <topic-slug>.md already exists, overwrite it in place with the fresh wiki_search result for the new query.

Never duplicate: do not create a second file for the same topic-slug. Empty results → write no file.