Citation Issues

I really should post this circumstance on the Ancestry errors wiki--and will--but I also need to figure out how to cite it.

In Ancestry's "U. S. City Directories (Beta)" I have accessed what they call "Stockton City and San Joaquin County Directory, 1888." In it I found my subject individual working as "hostler" for a particular man whom (with a little additional research) I discovered was somewhat well known in horse-racing circles. This is an interesting bit of information and I want to use it.

For several years now I have been cleaning up my database and formatting citations. This last week an interesting observation occurred with a post on a mailing list discussion about 1940 census citations. I noticed that the examples where "...County, State, population schedule, City/Township or District..."

I am using the following format for the source citation for 1940 US Census Images - I've written about this at my blog, http://destinationaustinfamily.blogspot.com/2012/04/source-citation-format-for-1940-us.html.

Source List Entry Example:

It might be just me, but these two first reference notes seem inconsistent.

1. Norwich, Connecticut, Norwich Probate District, file 10590, Hannah A. and Henry Thomas; Probate Court Norwich.

2. Clay County, Missouri, William Tapp probate file CF-15-42, Box 58 Old Series, Probate Division; Clay County Archives and Historical Society Library, Liberty.

In note 2--why is Probate Division before the semi-colon? It seems like it should be before.

I would also contemplate making note 2 something like this:

When adding an explanatory note, where is it placed? Usually it seems to go at the end of the citation. (See the middle citation in EE p. 87.) But it seems some comments deserve to appear in the middle of the citation.

For example, when a volume is not paginated, the notice of such is given in place of the page number. (See EE. p. 316.)

Or for file items the arrangement of the records seems to be described right where a page number would appear. (See EE. pp. 421, 423.)

What do you think?

I have a question. I am looking at the citations to vital records in EE.

Some have the vital event date in parentheses. See, for example, pp. 311, 313, and 315. The dates (1890), (1854), and (1727) are enclosed in parentheses.

Others do not have the vital event date in parentheses. See pp. 436-7 where dates 1871 and 1861, and 1895 are not in parentheses.

When are parentheses used? What is the principle involved?