Ancestry.com Marriage record from -Tennessee, U.S., Marriage Records, 1780-2002

Linda, with regard to the citation of material found at Ancestry, I'm going to answer you with a question: Why do you feel that your citation might not be accurate?  On what point do you have doubts?

With regard to errors within sources, EE's index points to quite a bit of advice on this. Specifically, under "errors, in personal names," the first of the three pages on which this is addressed, p. 50, has a foundational discussion while the subsequent pages have examples.

Linda, you wrote:

The information associated with the Ancestry.com source has a listing at the top of the record isn't correct.  It states:  Claiborne > 1838 Jun-1850 Nov: Marriages, (Refilmed)2.  That isn't the correct date were this record should be from.  This record was issued 5 Sep 1926.

It is good that you are “paying attention to the details.”  That’s exactly the mindset that makes one’s work reliable.  As I backtracked you from your citation, I noted the following.

• When I use the Ancestry URL it takes me to the exact record, but the header that identified the collection title and waypoints that you cited—the header that normally appear above the image—was not there. That whole panel of the screen is just white space.
• I shortened the citation, removing the question mark and everything after it, and the new URL took me to a screen with exactly the information that you saw. 

That said, another issue is discernible. The film that this set of waypoints leads to actually contains three volumes. First, there is the 1838-1850 cited in the waypoint. Second, a new register, whose cover is not filmed, begins with 1918 and runs through 1926. Third, yet another register begins with 1929 and runs through 1935.

In short, Ancestry produced a digital version of a microfilm that had three different volumes on it. Whoever created Ancestry’s path structure to access specific images noted only the dates for the first volume. Whoever wrote the descriptive data noted that the images were made from microfilm, but did not say who produced the microfilm or give us the specific microfilm created by the entity that did the filming.

If EE were citing this, we would use the Ancestry citation that you developed and then add a sentence to explain why and how the date in the waypoint errs.

You then wrote:

I looked for the same record at FamilySearch under their card catalog and found the correct date span and it also listed a Film no., Item and vol. So, I have changed the citation as follows:

First Reference Note (EE)

"Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950," database with  images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-893F-898D : 23 December 2016), Claiborne > Marriage records, v. D-9, May 1918-Dec. 1926, Film no 1928634, Item 2,  image 325 of 330, Page 517 (stamped), Charges [Charles] V. Muncy and Rena Vandeventer, 5 September 1926; citing Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville and county clerk offices from various counties.

This works. Just a couple of tweaks are in order:

"Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950," database with  images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-893F-898D : 23 December 2016), Claiborne > Marriage records, v. D-9, May 1918-Dec. 1926, Film no 1928634, Item 2,  > image 325 of 330, page 517 (stamped), Charges [Charles] V. Muncy and Rena Vandeventer, 5 September 1926; imaged from FHL microfilm 1928634, item 2, citing originals at “Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville and county clerk offices from various counties.”

Cleaned up, we’d have this:

"Tennessee, County Marriages, 1790-1950," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-893F-898D : 23 December 2016), Claiborne > Marriage records, v. D-9, May 1918 > image 325 of 330, page 517, Charges [Charles] V. Muncy and Rena Vandeventer, 5 September 1926; imaged from FHL microfilm 1928634, item 2, citing originals at “Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville and county clerk offices from various counties.”

Explanations: 

1. When copying the path, we copy it exactly. We should not add in more details such as the month of the last record, or the film or item numbers.
2. The identity of the FHL microfilm goes in Layer 3, where we provide the source-of-our-source data.
3. When we cite FHL film, we need to indicate whether the number represents microfilm or digital film. The catalog page on which you found the identification of the film makes that distinction for us.
4. When we cite page numbers, there is normally no need to say “(stamped).” This need arises commonly with manuscript census pages on which there may be several numbering schemes that require us to specify which scheme we are using. With most material, there is only one set of page numbers. We simply cite the number without indicating whether the number is stamped, penned, pencilled, or the corner in which it appears.
5. When we copy exactly a set of words from our source (as with “Tennessee ….. various counties”) we place quotation marks around that set of words that we are quoting exactly.

Glad to help, Linda!