Is this a formal title or not?

Hello, Jeff,

To reason through the situation you've encountered, let's review the basic format for a citation for this type of work. EE4’s Template 10 provides the pattern:

Following this pattern, your Layer 1, in which you identify the book, calls for the following:

• Author/Creator of register:
• Title of Register:
• Descriptor [for the register, if needed]
• Specific item:
• Descriptor for the specific item:
• Date for the document

You state:

“On the top of the page, the priest has written … . Do I cite what the priest has written as a title [for the register itself] or is it more appropriately listed as a descriptor?”

The words that appear on the specific page on which you found your document constitute a title or descriptor for the page itself, not for the entire register.

You also state: 

“There is no title page to the images [in this image group].”

Template 9—which covers a “Government, Church, or Corporate Office (Record Book)” without the added complication of online images—provides an example of what to do when a register has no title.  We create an identifier that describes the entire book.  In Template 9’s example, it is “Untitled miscellaneous record book 1897–1900.”

You would create something similar, to say the type of book and the time frame. Template 9’s “Construction Notes” also states:

“Title … When there is no title, as above, we describe the register generically and without quotation marks. Only the first word is capitalized because our description is not a formal title.”

You also wisely note: “The images are the second copy (transcription) of the parish register which was filled out by the parish priest and sent to the state as required by Napoleonic law.”

In this regard, Template 9’s “Construction Notes” tell us:

“Descriptor (for title). A descriptor is sometimes needed. For example: our study of the volume may reveal it is a transcription rather than the original. Or, in some locales, the volume title may be in a language that needs translating. Our addition would then be placed in the Descriptor Block.”

All things considered, EE would make the following tweaks to your draft citation, drawing upon the details that the images provide:

Greek Catholic Church, Duszcze (Kozowa), Births, marriages, deaths 1835–1849 (untitled state-level transcript of parish register), folio 65, entry for Stephanus [SURNAME, DATE], citing original page 52; imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GRM8-HS1 : accessed 21 December 2024) > image group number (IGN) 4932909 > item 6 >  image 536 of 856; citing Duszcze volume 201-4A/1535, Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, L’viv.

As an explanation of each point:

• In the block for the title of the register, no quotation marks are used because this is a generic description. For that same reason, only the first word of the register’s generic ID is capitalized.
• Because the register’s generic ID includes numerous commas, rather than using another comma between the generic ID and the register’s descriptor, clarity is improved by putting the descriptor in parentheses.  That more clearly separates one item (the ID) from the second (its descriptor).
• The pagination issue is confusing. The “pg 52” you cited is not actually the page number for this register. This register uses folio numbering in which the same number applies to both the front (recto) and (verso) of the page. The folio for this page is 65, written in the top right corner. The “pag. 52” that appears in the position you cited is a cross-reference that is part of the entry itself. It tells us that this entry appears on page 52 of the original register. That would be a useful piece of information if/when we are able to access the original, so we do want to include it in our citation. The place for it would be after the entry, saying that the entry is “citing original page 52.”
• A date is needed for the entry.
• Because the entries are not actually numbered, and because the correct entry is easily located on the page from the full name and date, there is no need to count the unnumbered entries and say “fourteenth entry.”
• The URL should be to the images themselves, not to the FHL catalog page.
• The details that FamilySearch provides about the volume number within the archive should be in our “citing ….” layer, where the archive is identified.  Note that the priest who copied the register, in his page-header descriptor, wrote that it was from “tome IV” in his parish. However, to locate the volume in the archive, we need the full number assigned to it by that archive.

Jeff,  yes, the register that begins at image 386 does have a title on the cover, long though it is. You would copy that and place the title in quotation marks.