Yes, It Has An Index But ...

My ever favorite genealogical researcher advisor, Michael John Neill, makes lots of good points in his "Genealogy Tip of the Day." Once he made a very good point about stopping to think about how a record series is organized before plunging straight into the series.  As he states, even when one has a name index to begin the records to which the name index points could be arranged in a variety of ways. He gives the following as examples:

• Vital records are usually recorded by file date, not necessarily the date of the event.
• Land records are organized by date the document was brought for recording, not the date the document was executed.
• Baptism records are organized by date of baptism, not birth date.
• Census records are organized geographically–with the amount of precision varying over time and from one place to another. Names may be organized in order of visit or roughly alphabetized.
• Loose probate papers are organized by probate case and those case files are generally organized by a case number–which may have been assigned based upon when the probate process was begun.
• And there are always exceptions and locations that seemingly invent their own system. Be flexible.

In my own experience, a reproduced record series can have several sequences of numbering. I have discovered this to be the case with more than a few of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History microfilmed series that we share in the Research Room. Which one is the one that links back to the index? That has to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Usually I try it both ways: as a page number in the microfilmed document and as an image number on the microfilm. There might indeed be a consistency to how the SCDAH numbered the documents in the past but as I use the microfilm on an intermittent basis as reference questions or my writing schedule require, I have yet to discern one. So much of what transpires here in the permanent section of the Beaufort County Library has to happen on the fly due to staff shortages and other responsibilities.

You'll also see the same situation on the genealogical subscription databases. Different components of Ancestry Library Edition or Family Search databases are indexed and arranged in different ways.

Moral of this post: Spend a few minutes acquainting yourself with how a source is arranged before plunging right into the index for your ancestor's name. It is often time well spent.