To answer your specific questions:
- "text in a database describing a record" might be an index, a transcription or an abstract. On Ancestry, the database name is the equivalent of a microfilm #. Using that name as the main piece of information makes it sound like it's an index or transcription that Ancestry created. In fact, I think it's an index that the State of Florida made and you were looking at a scanned or microfilmed image of a printed copy of that index. Not a database at all. I'd want to see the actual name of the source and the type of information (index, transcription, etc.) and who created the one you looked at (State of Florida).
- This is the link that I'd include in the full citation, not the one that takes you to a summary page that is essentially Ancestry's index of an index. And I'd only use information from this page. Take people directly to the item you were looking at if possible. All too often indexing introduces errors. Get as close to the original source as possible.
As for writing citations, WikiTree Sourcer will copy over Ancestry's pre-written citations for you and many people are quite happy with that.
I prefer to write my own. (If you're not interested in my peeves about badly written citations, feel free to quit reading now...
) Ancestry's citations contain a lot of irrelevant information and often leave out some or all of the most important information. If a citation is about a book, then a library's street address or that library's catalog number & shelving location for the book are not really all that important if I want to find it at my library. What I need is the title, author, edition and page number.
To write a really good citation, ask yourself "What would I tell someone I was looking at and where would I tell them to find a copy 30 years from now when Ancestry doesn't exist?" The link to the version you were looking at is an added common courtesy for when you find things online.
A good citation to a document will tell others:
- who the record is about, the event and the associated date and place of the event
- when, where and who created the original record
- the larger work or collection that the record is contained in and where it is in that work
- where to find the record such as a link to the version you saw, if it's online, and the holder or repository of the originals
A citation like "Ancestry.com. Georgia, Marriage Records From Select Counties, 1828-1978 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2019" tells me none of that even if it had a more specific link. What kind of marriage records? Bonds? Licenses? Certificates? A register? What if the collection includes more than one kind of these records for the same couple? How do I know which one someone was looking at? Which county was the record from? Did the record contain a more specific place? What year? There was no online database in 1828, so where is the actual record? Loose files? Volume 2? Page number? Or is it an index or transcription? You can see where this is headed.
Ancestry writes these citations as if they created and hold the records. Their address and the name they give their own database have nothing to do with the record (though a film # or database name can be convenient to help find it when links go bad).
Here's how I'd write the citation:
Divorce of Betty O. Crispino and ______ ____, Certificate Number 281, January 1962, Dade County, Florida, Florida Divorce Index, Volume #, page #, Florida Department of Health, Jacksonville, Florida, Film/DGS# or name, image 28 of 32, <link to the image that isn't hidden>, accessed 7 January 2024.
