Citing personal digital images of private family holdings

EE 3.24-3.30 covers the basic elements and formats to cite family artifacts in private possession. What is becoming even more and more prevalent since the publication of the revised third addition, is the ease of carrying around our cell phones to digitize the artifacts.

I recently had the opportunity to visit a family member who is “the keeper” of the family history information which consists of several plastic tubs of miscellaneous records, certificates, memoirs, photographs, funeral cards, etc., ca 1850 – 2020. She allowed me to take digital images of anything I wanted during the visit. Two days later I had over 300 images on my phone.  Given that I have a lot of disconnected information from the same collection, I would like to lead with the collection.

Looking at EE QC Model on p. 115 using the collection as the lead element. I would need to come up with some name for the collection and build a layered citation like:

Collection Name, (miscellaneous family records, portraits and memorabilia, ca. 1780-2020); privately held by First Last, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] City, State); [Subject or Item of Interest layer]. [Note(s) on provenance, evaluation, etc.]

Now my dilemma, where to add the information that I now have a digital image of the [Subject of Item of Interest]. I came up with three potential options. The first would to include information about the digital image in the [Notes] as part of the provenance and evaluation, the second is add an additional layer about the digital image to the format above and the third is to follow the model I use when looking at digital images online. Here are my attempts with the last two options. The bold is to emphasize where I added the information, not for formatting.

Collection Name, (miscellaneous family records, portraits and memorabilia, ca. 1780-2020); privately held by First Last, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] City, State); [Subject or Item of Interest layer]; digital image, created [Date] by MyFirst MyLast and currently held by MyFirst MyLast [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] City, State. [Note(s) on provenance, evaluation, etc.]

Is it necessary to cite that I created the digital image and currently hold the digital image? If we cite digital images on other websites – we cite where the image is held, but we don’t cite who took the image or on what date it was imaged. Also, I think this could be confusing – am I citing what I saw or what I have in my hand (or in this case, on my computer).

My third option was to lead with the item of interest similar to how I would cite a digital image on FamilySearch or Ancestry.

[Subject or Item of Interest layer]; digital image, (MyFirst MyLast [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] City, State : created [Date Imaged]); imaged from Collection Name, (miscellaneous family records, portraits and memorabilia, ca. 1780-2020); privately held by First Last, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] City, State). [Note(s) on provenance, evaluation, etc.]

I prefer this last approach for a number of reasons:

• it seems clear that I am citing the digital image - which if often the case as one typically takes the picture and then reviews the detailed info on/in the document later based on the digital image
• it lends itself to building a template within my database for use with other items in the collection
• it would also allow the collection name to be the lead element in the Bibliography/Source List.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for your guidance.