Citing an online obituary on a funeral home website

Would following this format be appropriate for citing this online obituary posted on a furneral home's web page?

Obituary, laytonandersonfh (http://www.laytonandersonfh.com : accessed 24 March 2018), Alexander Hinshelwood, died 15 March 2018. query: Hinshelwood

http://www.laytonandersonfh.com/obituary?id=315593

The funeral home web page appears to maintain a database of "current obituaries" so I don't think you can search for previous obituaries, and it's not apparent how long these entries are available.  I'm unsure if this type of web page, that temporarily keeps a searchable list of people for a limited time, needs special consideration in the citation.  I've also seen hospitals maintain web pages of this nature for current births.

Also, if we'd consider this a database, am I supposed to be putting in a database name in the citation, and if so, what would you use?

Submitted byEEon Sat, 03/24/2018 - 10:48

dpslager, I’ll rearrange your questions so that the answers to each will build on each other.

Name of Database

The left-side menu on the site's home page lists its different databases or modules or articles about the funeral home and its services. Whichever one of these we choose would be the name we use in the database/article field of the citation. In this case, the database or module is called “Obituaries.” You’ve appropriately begun your citation with that word. But it should be in quotation marks. In your citation template, you would place this word “Obituaries,” as the name of the database.

As a side hint here, citations don’t normally begin with a descriptive word telling what kind of source we are using--which is how the word obituary, without quotation marks, would be interpreted. Citations typically begin with the creator of the record. Or, if no creator is identified or if the name of the source is eponymous, then we don’t have to use the “creator” field of the citation. That’s the situation in this case.

Name of Website

You didn’t ask about this, but I’ll nitpick anyway. The name of the website is not laytonandersonfh. It’s Layton-Anderson Funeral Home.

Durability of Record and URL

You noted that this is a database of "current obituaries" and that "it's not apparent how long these entries are available." Experimenting with the id=315593 at the end of the URL, I tried lowering this number to see how far back I could go. id=1001 took me back to 2012, which seems to be the point at which the funeral home began putting obituaries online. It appears that Layton-Anderson started with the number 1001 and that it is not removing obituaries after some unspecified period of time.

On this basis, you might—instead of just citing the home page URL—use the URL that routes someone directly to Alexander Hinshelwood's page. Then you would not have to restate the name for which you are querying, which would eliminate a repetition.

All Things Considered

These tweaks would give us this citation:

“Obituary,” Layton-Anderson Funeral Home (http://www.laytonandersonfh.com/obituary?id=315593 : accessed 24 March 2018), Alexander Hinshelwood, died 15 March 2018.