Website with Multiple Transcriptions

Brian,

You've struggled well. Online sources present so many quirks and come in so many versions, with so many layers of  responsibility that it's easy to understand why some people decide to just cite the URL and be done with it. You're to be commended for recognizing that a transcription does not have the same reliability factor as the original newspaper item and for thinking through the issues.

In this case, as you've noted, there are three different levels of responsibility involved: the original paper, the website and its database, and the transcription offered by an individual who has no responsibility for either of the first two. Another consideration is that you may need to cite a number of obituary transcriptions from this source and, thus, need a format that emphasizes the database rather than the identity of the transcriber.

While it may look peculiar to have the transcriber cited where you place him, that is a logical place for him to appear in a citation to an aggregated database of this sort.  A comparable example would be individual memorial pages and photographs posted at Find A Grave—something we've discussed at length in this forum. (And an issue for which EE3 has a graphed QuickCheck Model on p. 216.)

Given that John Ingold has his own titled "page," another way of handling it might be this:

"MennObits," database, Mennonite Church USA Archives (http://www.mcusa-archives.org/MennObits/index.html : accessed 29 Sep. 2015), John Ingold, transcriber, "Gospel Herald Obituaries – September 1945," obituary for Aaron Loucks, died 7 Sep. 1945, Scottdale, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania; citing original publication in Gospel Herald, weekly newspaper (discontinued) of the Mennonite Church in North America, 14 Sep. 1945 (vol. 38, no. 24).

In this format, the reference to the transcriber follows the traditional sequence for articles published in a larger work—i.e., author/creator, "Title of Individual Section or Whatever," and specific item within that section.