Canadian Death Records from Online Images (Ancestry, FamilySearch)

Hello erinsheafitz,

There's a serious misunderstanding somewhere. EE4 does not contend that Layer 1 of a layered citation must be the original document, with the database & website relegated to Layer 2.  Can you point me to the EE section number that left you with this impression, so that I may review the language to see if it can be improved?

To the contrary, EE4 explicitly allows a choice for two reasons:

1. Sometimes, the set of images, as provided by the website, does not provide enough information to cite the original document fully.
2. Some researchers (and their software) prefer to emphasize the database so that they have only one master entry in their source list, while some researchers prefer to emphasize the original document.

In EE 4, you will find this explicitly stated in multiple places, starting with these:

• QuickStart Guide: Manuscripts & Online Images (tipped into front of book): "Layered citations are mix-and-match. When we need to feature the database or website, rather than the document, we can reverse the layers."
• Chapter 3: Building a Citation, §3.16 "Sequence of Layers: Online Images." This section goes into much more detail. If you have a copy of EE4 (as opposed to using software templates that say they are following EE4), do read this section.

As a general rule that may help you with other issues: Evidence Style citations allow choices in citing almost every type of historical document because (a) no type of document was created exactly the same in every community around the globe; and (b) the mechanisms by which document images are delivered to us are equally diverse.  In every edition of EE, Chapter 2, Fundamentals of Citation, begins with this statement:

Citation is an art, not a science. As budding artists, we learn the principles.… Once we have mastered the basics, we are free to improvise. Through that improvisation, we capture the uniqueness of each subject or setting. As historians, we use words to paint our interpretations of past societies and their surviving records. In order to portray those records, we learn certain principles of citation—principles that broadly apply to various types of historical materials. Yet records and artifacts are like all else in the universe: each can be unique in its own way. Therefore, once we have learned the principles of citation, we have both an artistic license and a researcher’s responsibility to adapt those principles to fit materials that do not match any standard model.

Of the two sample citations you provide:

Example 1 does not follow Evidence Style for the citation of a document.  All citations, whether an original document or a publication, follow a basic pattern. (See the QuickStart Guide again.) That pattern begins with the identity of the creator, answering the question WHO before saying WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, and WHEREIN.  In your first option, the citation leads with “Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.”  That is not the government agency that CREATED the record. That is the government agency where the record is archived.

The first layer of this example also does not provide full information about the document. See EE4 Template 12: Birth or Death Certificate that is not a family artifact.

Example 2 might be tweaked for a clearer presentation:

"New Brunswick, Canada, Deaths, 1888-1938," database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61512/images/FS_004529815_00208?pId=75335 : accessed : accessed 1 September 2026) > image 192 of 754, Mrs. Remi L. Cyr (née Eléonore Thériault), St. Basile Parish registration no. 8 (1931), New Brunswick Certificate No. 068192; citing Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, New Brunswick, Canada.

Explanations:

• The name of the website, being a standalone publication, is always italicized.
• "Accessed … accessed" is obvously a typo
• St. Basile Parish needs to be identified because the registration number you cite is the St. Basile number. When this copy was submitted to the New Brunswick departmental office, that larger office assigned it no. 068192.
• In the final layer (the "Citing ..." aka "Location" layer), we report where the database says its information came from. We preface that with the word “citing” so that readers of our citation understand what those subsequent details represent. For this point, see Template 5: Complex Website. Also §3.16.
• Note also: on Ancestry's landing page for this database, under "Source Information," it states that the data came from "Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, New Brunswick, Canada." It does not state that the document is in "Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Vital Statistics."  New Brunswick's Department of Health and Vital Statistics is not in the Provincial Archives.  Those are two separate government agencies.