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Reclaim the records have published lots of collections on the Internet Archive (as well as other places). Those on the Internet Archive can be accessed via https://archive.org/search?query=Reclaim+the+Records.
Most of the collections on the site do not indicate who originally created the records, which I would expect would be needed as the "Who" at the start of the citation. Or should the "who" be "Reclaim the Records"? Or is it unnecessary to include Reclaim the Records in the citation, just that it was found on the Internet Archive?
Hello, Obsessed_Genie…
Hello, Obsessed_Genie. Internet Archive examples appear in EE4 at 13.78 and 1410. Starting with one of those, would you try citing a specific item of interest to you and then we'll work from there?
From the ten-mile birds-eye view, why would Internet Archive be different from, say, FamilySearch or Ancestry.com? It's a website with many different things. Some things are in collections and some are not. Some are contributions by specific people and some are not. If something is in a collection, then that collection is named. If a creator or contributor is identified, then a creator's identity is always an essential part of a citation.
Generalities aside, the devil is always in the details—thus the reason for the request in paragraph one.
The examples in your book in…
The examples in your book in sections 13.78 and 14.10 are for books on the Internet Archive, which don’t quite fit for the records uploaded by Reclaim the Records.
Reclaim the Records has indexes to records, and also images of some actual records. The actual records include some vital records certificates, as well as lists of registered voters, which appear to have been in a book format without the cover & it’s publication details included (e.g. https://archive.org/details/RegisteredVotersNYC1924QueensAD02) . At the moment I am focusing on the vital records and the indexes of those events, so I have crafted an example citation for each of them after looking at the examples in 13.78 and 14.10.
Example of a certificate
Idaho Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Statistics, marriage certificate no. 6373 (1948), Lawrence L. Herring and Hazel Lea Hammitt; imaged, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/reclaim-the-records-idaho-marriages-1948 : accessed date 8 January 2026) > Idaho marriages 1948 > image 534 of 7878; citing Reclaim the Records.
Example of an index
New Jersey State Archives, death index, Margaret R. Fisk, 1902, no. 31416; “New Jersey Death Index – 1902,” imaged, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/NJ_Death_Index_1902 : accessed date 8 January 2026), page 110, image 66 of 205; citing Reclaim the Records.
I was unsure whether to include the waypoints since the URL takes us directly to that collection, so have crafted one example with waypoints and one with the collection name.
Obsessed, let’s back up to…
Obsessed, let’s back up to basics to ensure that those who read this post will understand all we’re saying.
A citation to the Internet Archive is like a citation to Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc., which is why I posed the question: How does your citation differ from a citation to one of the other mega-sites? The basic pattern is the same, whether the mega-site published an image of a book or an image of a record.
Items at the Internet Archive, like most items on Ancestry or FamilySearch, require a layered citation—sometimes two layers and sometimes three. (For layers, see EE’s QuickStart Guide tipped into the front of the book; and the new "Building a Citation" chapter in EE4.)
In your draft citation to an original certificate, you use three layers:
You handled Layer 1 well, using the basic pattern for original vital record certificates. Layers 2 and three is where we need tweaking.
As a launchpad, let's use one of the EE examples for Internet Archive (coloration differentiates the layers)
D. Pedro Tomas de Cordova, Memorias Geograficas, Historicas, Economicas y Estadisticas de la Isla de Puerto-Rico, volume 6, 1831 (N.P. : La Oficina del Govierno, 1831), 249; imaged, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/memoriasgeogrfi c00crdo/ : accessed 1 October 2023). [EE4 13.78]
Notice the pattern here? This basic pattern is used for all published materials:
Layer 1: Creator, Title of Publication in Italics (Publication data), specific item.
Layer 2: Creator,* Title in Italics (Publication data), specific item. (*Website creator does not have to be specified when it is the same as the website title.)
This basic pattern is used for all published material, but some publications are more complicated and require an adaptation. For example: When a website has multiple collections (or a book has multiple chapters), we may have two creators and two titles to cite. This is your situation with Reclaim the Records.
As shown in EE’s QuickStart Guide, in EE4’s Template 2, and in many examples throughout EE, we handle this by placing the chapter/collection creator first, before we cite the creator and title for the larger publication in which the chapter/collection appears:
Collection or Chapter Author, “Chapter or Collection Title in Quotation Marks,” Book Editor or Website Creator, Book or Website Title in Quotation Marks (Publication data), specific item.
Again, this pattern that we use for Ancestry, FamilySearch, etc., is the pattern you need for the Reclaim the Records Collection at Internet Archive.
For the certificate, your Layer 2 currently is this (Layer 2 = green; layer 3 = purple):
… imaged, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/reclaim-the-records-idaho-marriages-1948 : accessed date 8 January 2026) > Idaho marriages 1948 > image 534 of 7878; citing Reclaim the Records.
As mentioned first above, Layer 3 is the LOCATION layer.
But, of course, Reclaim the Records is not the location where the original record can be found. Below the images of the certificates, Internet Archive identifies this source by a collection title and a creator: Idaho Marriages – 1948 by Reclaim the Records.
In order to cite the creator of this collection, your Layer 2 needs to add this creator and this collection title at the start of the Layer 2 in the standard location for collections and books chapters.
… imaged, Reclaim the Records, “Idaho Marriages – 1948,” Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/reclaim-the-records-idaho-marriages-1948 : accessed date 8 January 2026) > Idaho marriages 1948 > image 534 of 7878,
You would not have a layer three (a location layer that begins with “citing ….”) because this source does not cite any additional archive or government office at which the record is cited.
Regarding waypoints, if your URL takes us directly to the image, we do not have to use waypoints, although we may choose to do so as an added safeguard against an eventual change in the URL. Without the waypoints, the citation (both layers) would look like this:
Idaho Department of Public Health, Division of Vital Statistics, marriage certificate no. 6373 (1948), Lawrence L. Herring and Hazel Lea Hammitt; imaged, Reclaim the Records, “Idaho Marriages – 1948,” Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/reclaim-the-records-idaho-marriages-1948 : accessed date 8 January 2026), image 534 of 7878.