Ahnentafel Charts

An Ahnentafel (Ancestor Table) is used to show ancestry using only text, through a specific, fixed numbering scheme.

This is a typical pedigree chart:

Note the numbering sequence. Each individual person is numbered, and that there is a mathematical relationship between parents and children. Each father's number is always double that of his child's while the mother's number is always double that of her child's plus one.

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An ahnentafel would depict the same ancestry as text:

•   1. Person
•   2. Father
•   3. Mother
•   4. Paternal Grandfather
•   5. Paternal Grandmother
•   6. Maternal Grandfather
•   7. Maternal Grandmother
•   8. Great-Grandfather
•   9. Great-Grandmother
• 10. Great-Grandfather
• 11. Great-Grandmother
• 12. Great-Grandfather
• 13. Great-Grandmother
• 14. Great-Grandfather
• 15. Great-Grandmother

The image above on the right is the first Ahnentafel, published by Micha?l Eytzinger in 1590 in the Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium.

For more information on Ahnentafels, read this Wikipedia article.

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There are other genealogical numbering systems discussed in this Wikipedia article.