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Archiver > GENMTD > 2000-05 > 0958246739


From: Silver Bullet< >
Subject: Re: Numbering system?
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 12:38:59 -0700


In the recent past, Barbara Mayo-Wells wrote:

>I'm looking for a numbering system that will make it clear at a
>glance which generation a person belongs to, plus which family line.
>Does such a thing exist?


No numbering system will be as clear as plain ole English. Most
modern day programs will provide this nomenclature for identifying a
person in a register style report:

John-5 (Richard-4, Thomas-3, Samuel-2, Lawrence-1) Smith.

If you are talking about a numbering system for navigation within
the publication... ie navigating from a sketch of a persons family
to the sketch of a parent, or a son, elsewhere in the data... that's
a different issue. Such systems include:

1) Ahnentafel numbering system for an ancestor ordered
genealogy,

2) normal register numbering for descendant arranged
genealogy,

3) Alphabetically arranged for a geographical-type database
(Savage's New England Dictionary is the classic for that
presentation, also see The Great Migration Begins.) (Or for either
descendant or ancestor presentations where there are many cousin
marriages.)

4) Or just rely on a good indexing system (ie shows both
married and maiden last names of women, and even listed twice, under
each.)

For your situation, you might consider different "chapters" (or even
separate books). One chapter could be an ahnentafel arranged
register report for ancestors of your xg grandparents. Then,
starting with them, and going down, in a descendant ordered register
report in a different chapter for their descendants.

I have so many identified immigrant ancestors (over 100) that an
ahnentafel arranged ancestor report is plain confusing and makes no
sense for me. I'm looking for a software that will do an ancestor
report arranged by agnate line, until it "daughter's out" on each
line, and then a cross-reference on the daughter's line to the
husband's line's chapter.

I am also planning (someday) an area genealogy, which will be
alphabetically arranged (a la Savage).

Suggest you cruise a library and shuffle through the myriad of
published genealogies to get a feel for all the different kinds of
presentations and which work for you and which don't.

You will have enough of a problem trying to make your work so
interesting that it is actually taken off of the coffee table
(closet?) and read; a particular numbering system of one sort or
another won't help any, in my opinion... I suggest you look for the
best arrangement of your info and what you have to give and the best
way to present it.


Norris

__________
EMail: Norris Taylor <>
Genealogy Home Page: http://members.aol.com/ntgen/index.html
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