Personnel Records of the First World War at Library and Archives Canada

Jennifer, your queasiness likely stems from two issues:

1. The disparate identities you have for the website title and the creator.
2. In the citation to the image, the placement of the image description in the wrong location.

There's also a third issue. When we are citing a 34-page file, we will need to cite specific documents within the file. That can't be done within the framework of the two citation formats you are experimenting with.

Let's walk through these in detail ...

ISSUE 1:

• Image citation: Here, you cite the creator of the website as Library and Archives Canada, then the name of the website as Military Heritage.
• Database citation: Here, you cite the creator of the website as Government of Canada, then the name of the website as Library and Archives Canada.

The ID of the creator should be the same in both cases. The ID of the website should be the same in both cases. The complexity of large websites do create confusion. In this case:

• The creator of the website is the Library and Archives Canada, which is a division of the government of Canada.
• The title of the website is also Library and Archives Canada. The website carries the name of the agency that created it. In such cases, we don't have to cite the same entity twice.
• There is no website titled Military Heritage. That is a page at the website.
• There is a database called "Personnel Records of the First World War" for which we are given a link on the "Military Heritage" page 

Like many large websites, pages at this website have menus through which we can drill down to get to what we want. In this case, to get from the home page to the Military Heritage page, the path we follow (also casually called "breadcrumbs") would be this:

Library and Archives Canada  > Discover the Collection > Browse by Topic > Military Heritage

At that last page, "Military Heritage," we have to continue drilling down two more levels to find the link to the database. The whole path from the home page to the database is this:

Library and Archives Canada  > Discover the Collection > Browse by Topic > Military Heritage > First World War > Personnel Records of the First World War > 

We have options for handling complex websites such as this. Usually, we choose whichever option is simplest for the situation at hand.

1. We can cite the database and its URL, then cite the search terms that takes us to a specific document or database entry.
2. We can cite the path we followed to get from the website's home page to the document.

In your example for the image, you begin by citing the database but you don't cite the URL for the database. Instead you cite the URL for the exact image. Depending upon the architecture of the website, that may or may not be a problem. At this website, it is a problem. The URL will take users of your citation (or you at a future date) to the image but it's not then possible to backtrack the URL to get back to the database and its background explanations. We get an error message when we try. What works best for this website is to cite the URL for the database itself, then the search terms that produce the image. 

ISSUE 2:

The basic format for citing a database at a website (see EE's QuickStart Guide tipped into the front of the manual) is this:

Creator of Database (if necessary), "Database Title in Quotation Marks" Creator of Website (if necessary, Website Title in Italics (URL : date), specific item.

In your first example, you've taken the "specific item" data and inserted it between the website title and the URL. It needs to be moved for clarity. (As an aside, if you're using database software with template formats, you'll notice that there is no field at all, between website title and the URL, in which you could enter the specific item data.)

Applying these alterations would give you this for the database itself.

     1. "Personnel Records of the First World War," database with images, Library and Archives Canada (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/personnel-records.aspx : accessed 31 October 2019); citing LAC Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166.

In those relatively rare occasions in which you would need to cite the whole file itself, we would build upon the citation above to create this:

      2.  "Personnel Records of the First World War," database with images, Library and Archives Canada (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/personnel-records.aspx : accessed 31 October 2019), service file for George MacBean, Regiment no. 622417; citing LAC Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 6589 - 39: 144519.

In almost all cases in which we cite a military service file, a pension file, or some other file, we also need to cite the specific document that provides a specific piece of information. That can't be done within the frame work of a citation that emphasizes the database rather than the document—at least it can't be done with clarity.

In this case you need to use a three-layered citation instead of two layers. 

• Layer 1 will cite the specific document and the file itself, as much of it as you can attest to by your visual examination of the imaged file.
• Layer 2 will cite the database/website that provides the document.
• Layer 3 will then present whatever source-of-the-source information that provider gives.

Below, in which I use the document at image 21 for an example, I'm putting each of the three layers in a different color.

     2. Medical History Sheet," 28 April 1915; Service File, George MacBean (Regiment no. 622417, Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, World War I); imaged in  "Personnel Records of the First World War," Library and Archives Canada (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/personnel-records/Pages/personnel-records.aspx : accessed 31 October 2019), image 21 of 34;  citing LAC Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 6589 - 39: 144519.

The various military-records examples in Chapter 11 might help ground you in the details that are essential to citing files of this type. Even though these are U.S. examples rather than Canadian, the essentials are the same.