Ancestry's US Obituary Collection

I am curious about citing Ancestry's Obituary Collection. Currently I am citing obituaries from this collection as an online database and when available image. For example:

United States Obituary Collection, database and image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 June 2012), "Carol Anne Ice,", obituary, Kansas City Star (Missouri), 10 March 2011.

Since some of the links in this collection take you to an image of the newspaper, could you cite this similar to a newspaper citation? Something like:

"Carol Anne Ice,", obituary, Kansas City Star (Missouri), 10 March 2011; United States Obituary Collection, database and image, Ancestry.com, (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 June 2012).

If you are using this source in a published article would the publisher delete the "repository" as obituaries can be found in numerous places?

 

Ann Gilchrest

Submitted byEEon Sat, 06/23/2012 - 16:11

Ann, either format would work. The important point is to make clear whether you have actually consulted an image or whether you had to rely upon the database.

As for the policies of journal editors and publishers, virtually every journal does some things differently than others. That's why, when you use a "citation generator" online, you may have hundreds of different journal styles that you're asked to choose from. Each journal has its own little preferences, often based on the simple fact that the journal "has always done it that way."

If you follow EE style, you'll benefit in two ways: (1) You will almost certainly have at hand whatever pieces of information your editor or publisher requests; and (2) You will have, in your working files, all the details that you need to make more-reliable judgments about the quality of your source.