Indexing City Directory "r" vs "b" in listing - residential vs business address?
I'm indexing from batch: "US—City Directories, 1901–1935 [Part E] [MQ2D-1Z5]" and notice the entries have an "r" or a "b" in them. Can anyone verify whether this is identifying an address as r = residential or b = business?
Based on this, if "b" is indicating a business address, do we not index that entry, since the instructions say to only index residential entries and not business ones?
Here's an example of the type of entry I'm referring to:
"Bredemeier Laura sorter b 309 Oakley"
"Bredenkamp Anna bkpr b Herman Bredenkamp"
"Bredenkamp Edith stenogr b 1418 E Michigan"
"Bredenkamp Jno J r 1402 Grand av Elnora A"
"Breen Jas W barber 929 Main r 808 Chestnut Minnie"
Answers
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I looked into this further and found the abbreviations page for this City Directory. In this case, "r" means residence and "b" means boards. So, "b' DOES NOT signify that the address is a business location. If I'm looking at this correctly, we should be careful to consider that if there is a person's name directly after the b, that would be the person the individual is boarding with and not generally their spouse! (Just a word of caution for those indexing similar situations.)
For example, with the entry "Bredenkamp Anna bkpr b Herman Bredenkamp" I believe it is correct to index only Surname: Bredenkamp, Given Name: Anna with the other fields (including spouse surname/given name) "blank" since she is a bookkeeper boarding with Herman Bredenkamp. In this case — to further solidify the belief that Herman Bredenkamp is not the spouse of Anna — on this same sheet, there is a Herman Bredenkamp listed with who appears to be his spouse, Kate.
Please let me know if I'm looking at this incorrectly!! Thanks everyone! Happy Indexing.
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You are absolutely correct
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