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I'm trying to follow Edition 4, using Template 10 for online images. Here is what I have for an initial footnote.
Church of England (Clarendon, Pontiac, Quebec, Canada), Parish register, B. M. S., including 1919, fo. 239, Burial Wilson, burial of Elizah Ann Wilson (died 2 Aug 1919), 4 Aug 1919; imaged, "Drouin Collection records © 2022," Drouin Institute, Généalogie Québec (https://www.genealogiequebec.com/membership/en/fonds-drouin/REGISTRES : 5 Jul 2022), Québec > Registres non-catholiques 1760-1979 > Township of Clarendon (Church of England) > 1910 > 1919, image M122_37_1338.jpg.
I realize I have to do work on this citation as a whole, but the actual issue at hand is that Genealogy Quebec has "sliced up" the parish registers to fit into a hierarchy of directories by decade and year. Consequently; it is almost impossible to find the date range spanned by the volume one is consulting, let alone a title page. Is using "Parish register, B. M. S., including 1919" for a user-supplied title adequate?
History-Hunter, we feel your…
History-Hunter, we feel your pain in using those "sliced-up" records. We see that frequently now at FamilySearch, as well—particularly with county-level civil records.
In this case, the records you are using are behind a paywall. I do not subscribe and cannot access them in order to analyze the architecture of the website or nuances of the collection, both of which I would need to do before making an informed opinion.
On the basis of what you present, two issues pop to mind:
1. Is the generic "Church of England" the name of the local church/parish at "Clarendon, Pontiac, Quebec, Canada" or is there a specific parish name?
2. What do those initials "B.M.S." stand for? Less experienced users of your work are likely not to know. If you were citing a French-Catholic church, then readers experienced with those records would quickly guess "Baptêmes, Mariages, Sépultres"; but since you are citing "Church of England," most would automatically expect the abbreviations to stand for English words. "Baptisms" and "marriages" would come to mind, but not "burials." Bottom line: It's better not to require users of our work to guess at what we mean.
On the latter point (and abbreviations in generation), see EE4 §2.30 "Reducing ... Source Citations to Acronyms & Initialisms," particularly the sentence: "Each abbreviated form should be fully identified the first time it appears."
On the overarching issue of how to handle the sliced-up records, rather than cite the local parish and a record name that you've had to make up, Evidence Style would likely default to citing the online provider in Layer 1:
"Database Title," Website Creator, Title of Website (Publication Place = URL : Date) > Path > Image No. > Specific Item details;
and then use Layer 2 to cite what the provider tells us about the original record and where to find it. But, again, without being able to study the website for myself, this answer is a generalized one.
Genealogy Quebec is a wealth…
Genealogy Quebec is a wealth of information, but their records are not (at least yet) organized in a manner that is easy to reference in Evidence Explained style. This is, to a great extent, due to their choice of archival structure and compounded by their current transition to the database search concept used by other major sites.
With regard to the main issue...
The records I'm citing come from a time in which the non-Catholic churches were just establishing their presence on the east side of the Ottawa River (Québec). Consequently; there often was not a physical church building or officially named parish. This is why I've name the parent body, as the site does, as the author/creator.
The state of the collection, currently, in 2026...
Genealogy Quebec does not yet have all the Drouin Collection accessible via a "full-up" database; at least in the sense that other major sites do. It is still largely a typical archival collection and certainly was in 2022, when I did my research.
The site, currently, does now have a rudimentary search engine to navigate the collection. I suspect that they are moving toward indexing all the records by name and eventually migrating to using their new site-wide search engine to access the collection. However; one can, at least, search for a particular structural level or the actual image filename. Unfortunately; this feature was not present in 2022 (the year of my research). So; I I don't think I should use it, if I cite-what-I-saw at the time.
The state of the collection when I did the research on 2022...
As below; the collection was/is arranged as directories, sub-directories and images; basically, as a conventional archival hierarchy. At the lowest levels, the records are arranged by decade, years and image filename. As such; I chose to use the collection root as the URL and a trail-of-breadcrumbs from that point down to a specific image. Unfortunately; those images do not have a permalink. However; I believe the image names are static; if that helps.
Bottom line ...
I'm not sure about using:
"Database Title," Website Creator, Title of Website (Publication Place = URL : Date) > Path > Image No. > Specific Item details;
To date, the "Drouin Collection" has not been fully indexed in a database. It seems that the subject collection may eventually be fully-accessible when fully integrated into their "Drouin Great Collections". That is one of the collections that can currently be accessed via the new site wide database. As you can see; using the collection name "Drouin Collection" in place of a "Database Title" would be confusing to readers for a number of reasons.
I hope this provides better visibility into the issue and allows you to, perhaps, suggest something that won't cause issues down the road.
Regards;
History Hunter
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Here is the structure to which I've previously referred:
... and so on to...
I tried to embed images to…
I tried to embed images to allow you to see the supporting images on how the Drouin Collection is accessed, but the site makes it very difficult to do and seems to result in red "X"s and no way to edit the post.
I believe my textual description should still contain sufficient information for one to understand why the suggested solution may not be advisable.
I've just spent a while with…
I've just spent a while with the book and a cup of coffee and tried to understand why I felt uncomfortable about your revised citation structure.
I understand why you suggested flipping layers 1 and 2. It gets rid of the issue of not having a title page. However; an electronic manifestation of an archival collection structure doesn't make it a "database" (either with/without images) and so the citation should be clear what is being cited. So; one should use the "Description" element after the "Collection Title" to clarify what the form of the title-element. I believe this would be in line with the structure used in EE4.
That would mean that the format of layer 1, I would suggest, would become something like;
"Collection Title," digital archive, Website Creator, Title of Website (Publication Place = URL : Date) > Path > Image No. > Specific Item details[; source-of-source, as required].