The normal - and extremely easy and effective - method of numbering
your
ancestors is to assign yourself (or child) the number 1. If you are
No. 1,
then your father is No. 2, your mother No. 3, your paternal grandfather
No.
4, etc. In this system, a person's father's number is always twice
the
person's number and his or her mother's number is twice plus one. Decimal
points are added for side branches of the family. This method of numbering
one's ancestors is used worldwide and is called the Sosa-Stradonitz
System for the Spanish genealogist Jerome de Sosa who first used it
in
1676 and for Stephan Kekule von Stradonitz who popularized it in his
1896
Ahnentafel Atlas. It is also sometimes called the "Ahnentafel Numbering
System." Ahnentafel is a German word meaning 'ancestor table'.
Other
than the starting person, males always have even numbers and
women
odd numbers, and children of any of these couples who are not in Person
Number one's direct ancestry are given the number of their father with
a
decimal point and a number relating to their birth-order among their
siblings. The ID number of a spouse is appended with the letter "s".
For example:
1 Rebecca Ann Hall
2 Horace Marvin Hall
3s Nellie L. Lorren
4 Unknown
5s Alma Dudley
6 Jasper Tillman Lorren
3 Nellie L. Lorren
6.2. Kenneth Lorren
6.3 Clarence D. Lorren
7s Christine Inez Cook (Lorren)
8 Unknown
9s Unknown
10 Unknown
11s Unknown
12 Samuel Prathel Lorren
6 Jasper Tillman Lorren
13s Nancy Olena Hedgepeth (Lorren)
14 Franklin Cook
15s Georgia Haney (Cook)
If the same information was presented as a pedigree, it would look
something like this:
8. Unknown
4. Unknown
|
9. Unknown
|
2. Horace Marvin Hall
|
|
10. Unknown
|
5. Alma Dudley
|
11. Unknown
1. Rebecca Ann Hall
|
|
12. Samuel Prathel Lorren
|
6. Jasper Tillman Lorren
|
|
13. Nancy Olena Hedgepeth
3. Nellie L. Lorren
|
14. Franklin Cook
7. Christine Inez Cook
15. Georgia Marilyn Haney
Notice that the numbers are the same as in the ahnentafel if you read
the
pedigree left to right and top to bottom. The advantage of the pedigree
is
that it gives a nice visual view of the relationships. But the ahnentafel
can
show a lot more information in a concise way. It is also easy to add
additional information (dates and places of birth, death and marriage;
biographical info, etc.) to an ahnentafel.