Indexing city directories

HalFields

I am indexing a city directory that is two columns of records per page with the records listed alphabetically by last name and generally working down the first column and continuing on the second column. However, when I came to the end of a letter of the alphabet, the remainder of the records for that letter were split evenly and displayed across the tops of both columns. Then a banner business ad was displayed that covered both columns, and then the records beginning with the new letter were listed in the first column under the ad, continued to the bottom of the page, then continued in the second column beneath the ad.

My usual order of work is to work down the page in the first column and to then continue at the top of the second column and go down that column to the bottom of the page. If I do that for this batch, though, I list some records beginning with the letter "V", then switch to records beginning with "W", go to the top of column 2 and switch back to the last "V" records, then continue on with the "W"s.

Should I use my normal order of recording which is all of the first column then all of the second column, which mixes up the alphabetical order of about 10 of the records. Or, should I move back and forth from column to column and maintain alphabetical order of the entries?

https://www.familysearch.org/indexing/batch/0d23c631-b25f-4f7e-bbb6-9d04a4794b89#:~:text=Image%20Name,MQLW%2DVW6

HalFields

Thanks for the guidance.

erutherford

You will index top to bottom, left to right, no matter how folks are listed.