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A list of one's ancestors with each one numbered in a sequential manner that makes it easy to calculate relationships. The Ahnentafel method is the most common method of numbering ancestors Ahnentafel is a German word that translates as “ancestor table” or, literally, a list of one’s ancestors. The same numbering system is also sometimes called the Sosa-Stradonitz System, named after the Spanish genealogist Hieronymus/Jerome de Sosa, who first used it in 1676, and after the German genealogist Stephan Kekulé von Stradonitz [1863-1933], who popularized it in his 1896 Ahnentafel Atlas. In an ahnentafel numbering system, the base person is assigned the number one. The father of each person is assigned a number equal to double the child’s number. The mother of each person is assigned a number equal to double the child’s number plus one. As a result, the number of any child is one-half that of their parent, ignoring any remainder. For the first four generations, the numbers assigned a given person and their ancestors reflect the following relationships:
Translating this to a real person, here is an excerpt from the ahnentafel of one well-known American, complete with ahnentafel numbers:
You can read a more detailed explanation of ahnentafel numbering in the October 14, 2002 edition of Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter at: http://www.eogn.com/archives/news0241.htm The primary disadvantage of Ahnentafel numbers is the size of each number when going back many generations. When you go back eight or more generations, the numbers become quite large. Someone with a documented line of descent from Charlemagne may be using ahnentafel numbers in the billions. Ahnentafel numbers are the only commonly-used numbers for ancestor lists. However, a number of systems exist for numbering descendants in a list See: Numbering Systems Last Modified 6/14/07 11:07 AM | Hide Tools |