Auto-number page objects from master pages

Question

Hello all! I'm trying to set up a photo contact sheet template in InDesign so that we can get rid of the one we're using in Word that's rather...clunky. The only caption underneath each photo will be a simple, basic number that increases sequentially. There are six photos per page. I dove into numbered lists for the first time and figured out how to make the numbered captions work on the regular document pages, but I am trying to avoid creating the caption text box objects there because these contact sheets could be anywhere from 10-40 pages, and it's much easier to just create a slew of new pages from a master page.
When I transfer the number captions to the master page, the numbers are correctly sequenced when a single new document page is created from that master...but any additional document pages have the same sequential numbers (e.g. 1-6)! Is there a way to get around this?

Answer 1

Peter, without threading, the individual text boxes on the master page do number correctly. They are empty text boxes except for an invisible character such as a hard return, and once I have the invisible character in place, the numbers appear.
Because 1-6 already number and appear correctly, it doesn't make sense to me to thread them together, although I did try it including from caption 6 back to caption 1...this resulted in caption 1 disappearing and all the other captions reducing by increments of one (1-5).
I'm not sure if I'm 'placing' my list incorrectly (that term doesn't quite make sense to me ~ I thought you define a list and then apply it directly or through a paragraph style?) or what, but do you have any other suggestions?