Analyzing records requires that we think about how the original was created. This 1891 era death register page from Adams County, Illinois, may suggests that the entries were sorted by first letter of their last name in the register. That can be seen by noticing that the initial letter of each surname is the same.
It is also clear looking at the certificate numbers in the left column that these items were not entered in sequential order. When looking at any set of records, try and determine how they were organized. Sometimes this will be obvious and other times it will not be. Sometimes the individual who microfilmed or digitized the items included the enough contextual information that the organization is obvious, sometimes they did not.
Whenever a manual browsing or searching of the records is necessary it’s imperative that the organizational structure be known. Searching, and later analysis, depend on it.
In the illustration, death certificates were submitted to the local records office and information was transcribed from them into the death register, which was apparently organized by initial letter of the last name of the deceased.
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