How to Cite a digital image viewed on Ancestry.com when Ancestry.com is not correctly citing the original source?

ANackman, your problem is a common one, regardless of the archives or the online provider that we use. EE demonstrates the problem in various ways with several suggestions for handling it. We are now assuming that you've looked at all the different index entries under such terms as "correcting," but are puzzled as to how to "translate" a correction from some other instance to your specific case.

Let's consider a piece of advice that appears throughout EE (here, I'll quote specifically from 11.40):

"Your citation should be to the data you actually find, although you may add any clarifications you feel are needed, so long as it is clear that the clarification comes from you and not the source."

You state that the problem arose when you "attempted to cite the original source." In reality, you aren't citing the original because you haven't used the original. You are citing an image at Ancestry's database. Therefore, as 11.49 counsels, you identify what you have used and what you have found.

EE would say that your problem arose when you attempted to supply data for the citation field that is generically known as "source of the source"—that is, what your source (Ancestry) says is its source. Ancestry does, indeed, identify that as "Georgia Tax Digests [1890]. 140 volumes. Morrow, Georgia: Georgia Archives." Therefore, this is what you should report in the "source of the source field"—with those quotation around the whole to indicate that you are quoting Ancestry exactly.  (It's also not a standard citation format but, because you are quoting, you would copy it exactly and use those quotation marks.)

Now, you—as a thoughtful researcher—have realized that your source is misleading and you wish to make a correction. As the first bullet above says, "You may add any clarifications you feel are needed so long as it is clear that the clarification comes from you and not the source." If your explanation is short, you can simply place a semicolon after your quote from Ancestry and then add your explanation. If your explanation runs to multiple sentences, then just put a period at the end of your quote from Ancestry and launch into whatever explanation you feel you need to give.

EE would also caution on one point: Never would EE alter a provider's citation to conform with something learned in a telephone conversation with an archivist. It is much too easy for a misunderstanding to arise in a phone conversation. We may be discussing one item, while the archivist thinks we are discussing some other perhaps-related item.