The Illusive Database

Wayneson, yes in technological terms, websites are databases. However, some website databases offer images and others do not. Some of the latter offer authored articles and some offer raw data that has been extracted from somewhere else into a kajillion database enties.

Because these differences make a significant difference in the quality of the evidence we are using, Evidence Style citationsuse a descriptor field after the title of the database to indicate what kind of database we are using.

Re your fifth paragraph:

Q1: "In the case of Ancestry ... a title for the database is not always specified" ...

A: Would you give us an explicit example to work with?

Q2: "in cases where an image is provided, I become anxious about whether to cite the image or the database."

A: We cite both. Here, we have two options:

• We use two layers with Layer 1 describing the original (according to proper form for that type of original); and Layer 2 detailing the provider (website and database, URL, path, image no., etc.).  Or ...
• We use one layer with emphasis on the website and database, citing it as we would cite any publication,  with the (usually incomplete) details for the original stuffed into the "specific item field" of that citation.

QuickLesson 19: Layered Citations Work Like Layered Clothing discusses this in greater detail.

Wayneson, a full citation to a newspaper article is a lot to stuff into the "specific item" field of a citation to a database. If you choose that approach, then you'd simply follow the format for a full citation to a newspaper article and stuff it all into that one field of the database citation.

Your citation draft, above, takes that approach—sorta.  It inverts the order of the items you are citing and uses punctuation that actually communicates something else. The specific item you are citing from that website should not be separated off into a different layer by inserting a semicolon between the two. By longstanding tradition (in other words: the standard communication that everyone understands or is taught to understand), a citation to a standalone publication (website, book, etc.) places a comma after the parenthetical publication data and then cites the specific page or item.

A two-layer citation, in which the two separate publications are separated by a semi-colon, will first present the original as a full citation in Layer 1. It will then add a semicolon to tell readers that we are about to cite a totally different source, but we will use bridge words to indicate the connection between the two. For example: ; imaged in ... 

However, if you present the database first, then add a semicolon followed by a totally different source, then you are using the traditional form of presenting two unrelated sources. You're lacking a connector or an explanation.

Yes, punctuation and sequence might be considered nitpicking. But punctuation and sequence are two of the tools that writers use to communicate their intent.