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From: "Richard A. Pence" <>
Subject: Re: Numbering system?
Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 12:42:11 -0700


Barbara Mayo-Wells <> wrote:

> I'd appreciate suggestions on a system for numbering the small
> but complicated family tree that I've been amassing for a few
> years.

> There are 6 generations (gg grandparents thru my children).
> The starting point is my maternal grandmother -- going back to
> as many of her ancestors as I can find in the US; haven't
> explored the German and Swiss connections yet.

> She had lots of cousins, who had spouses and children.

> Her children (my parents' generation) married, & I have
> information on the spouses' parents and siblings -- plus the the
> same information for members of my generation and my
> children's generation.
>
> 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?


Dear Barbara:

The short answer is "probably not - at least not a satisfactory one."

For background on numbering systems and examples of most of them,
see my aricle, "Numbering Systems In Genealogy" at:

http://www.saintclair.org/numbers/

The difficulty you have in trying to develop a numbering system for
the database you describe is that you are dealing with two sets of
data: (1) the ancestors of your material grandmother and (2) the
descendants of your maternal grandmother.

There are good systems for handling one database or the other, but
not for handling a combined database of both ancestors and
descendants of an individual.

The ancestor-numbering system that is universally used is the
ahnentafel ("ancestor table"). In this system, a given individual
is No. 1. His/her father is No. 2, his/her mother No. 3, paternal
grandfather is No. 4, paternal grandmother No. 5, maternal
grandfather No. 6 and maternal grandmother No. 7, and so one.
Familiarity with an ahnentafel chart or listing allows you to
readily identify such things as the sex of the individual (except
for No. 1, all males have even numbers, all females have odd
numbers. The value of the number tells you which generation the
person is in, although you probably would need a reference table to
make that determination: No. 1 is the first generation, 2 and 3 the
second, 4-7 the third, 8-15 the fourth, 16-31, the fifth, etc., with
the number of ancestors in each generation doubling.

A good numbering system for descendants is what I call the Modern
Henry System (which I "invented" and wrote about in 1982 without
realizing it was only a minor variation of a long-used system. <g>

In this system, the progenitor of the family is given any arbitrary
number. As an example, let's use my own lineage. My immigrant
ancestor was Henry Pence and I assigned him the No. 6 (for various
reasons unrelated to what we are discussing here).

Thus:
6 Henry Pence
67 John Pence (seventh child of No. 6)
673 George Pence (third child of No. 67)
6731 Curtis M. Pence (oldest child of No. 673).
67313 Allen M. Pence (third child of No. 6731)
673138 Robert M. Pence (eighth child of No. 67313)
6731381 Richard A. Pence (me, the oldest child of 673138)

Any individuals number allows you to identify each ancestors of any
given individual descended from Henry: The 6 tells me which line (as
opposed to, say, 4, the line of an older brother to Henry) and each
character in the number identifies each person down the line. You
also know what generation number by counting the number of
characters in the ID No.: There are 7 characters in my ID, so I am
in the 7th generation. You can also look at any two numbers assigned
to the descendants of Henry and determine their relationship,
although this usually takes a bit of scribbling for me.

The original Henry Numbering System overcame the problem of how to
designate the 10th and more children in a family by giving the 10th
child the designation X (the Roman numeral for 10), then designating
the 11th child as A, the 12th as B, etc. My "invention" - and many
others "discovered" this about the same time, was to apply the
principles of the hexadecimal numbers to the Henry System, making
the 10th child A, the 11th B, 12th C, and so on.

This "modern" adaptation of the Henry system is well suited to
computers because if you use normal sort patters, A will sort
immediately after 9, and so on. Thus, you can sort the database by
the ID and each family will be placed in order in the database.

There have been attempts to devise systems that combine the
ascendancy characteristic of the ahnentafel system with the
descendants characteristics of the Henry system, but the two don't
mix well - inevitably there numbering conflicts will arise. There
are some examples of these attempts in my article.

For this reason - and some others - I keep separate databases. One
is my own ancestors and the other is my PENCE one-name study
database. For me, there is no real reason to try to combine them.
For others, like you, it would be nice to have a system which will
do what you seek. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to do
and becomes so entangled that it defeats the purpose for which
numbering systems were devised: to aid in identification of
individuals and their lineages.

Aren't you sorry you asked. <g>

Regards,
Richard A. Pence, 3211 Adams Ct, Fairfax, VA 22030
Voice 703-591-4243 Fax 703-385-0971
Pence Family History <http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/>;

"Richard A. Pence" <>

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