Genealogy Chat

The numbering system that you are referring to is called the Ahnentafel System. It only applies to direct ancestors, so will be no good for numbering aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. Wikipedia have an article which explains Ahnentafel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnentafel .

I don't know of any "official" system for numbering descendants of aunts & uncles (i.e. cousins). Obviously this would be more complicated than for direct ancestors as you need to be able to differentiate which of your ancestors each cousin was descended from. That would get twice as complicated with each generation that you go back - e.g. first cousins could be descended from either pair of your grandparents, second cousins could be descended from any of your four pairs of great-grandparents, etc. Once you take into account any half-cousins it would get even more complex.

There are systems for numbering descendants of an individual (see wikipedia again, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogical_numbering_systems#Descending_numbering_systems) but I don't think this is what you mean as with these systems, you start your numbering with a given ancestor so the numbers will be different depending on which ancestor you start with, and it would not include individuals who are related to you via a different line to the starting ancestor.

As Jill stated above, your family history program will assign a unique number to each individual that you add to your tree. This will be a consecutive number in the order that you added the names (though it does re-use numbers if an individual is deleted from your tree). Depending on the specific software that you're using, you should be able to display this ref number in charts, family sheets, etc. You can then use this number as your personal reference to that person (eg. I do this for saved census images, certs, etc, on which I write the relevant ref number as a cross reference).

Richard

I did read about some numbering system in a book from the library. It seemed a bit convoluted to me.

I put all mine on my PAF file which gives each of them a unique number so I use that as the reference number. Not exactly what you're after but it's useful when you have 5 Thomas Mococks - at least you know which one is which!

Jill

I know you can give your parents the numbers 1 and 2,then double it ,or double +1 for grandparents.
Is there any system to record all off-spring or Aunts & Uncles anyone knows of?
Regards
Steve