"The Spearing Numbering System (Part 1)"

Line Number Chart, showing 'L' numbers
 with colour-coding by generation

When I began compiling genealogy data it occurred to me that it might be a prudent idea to incorporate a way of cataloguing my ancestors database-style as they come into re-existence. One quick internet search later and I had found that there are several “accepted” numbering systems out there, and it was a relief to know that at least my cataloguing method had already been figured out for me. Count that as my first mistake - all of the systems (save for one) are descendant-based, meaning that the numbering starts with the oldest ancestor and moves forward in time. This implies that your starting point has to be an ancestor that you have already determined to be the earliest entry in your historical database, which implies that my research will have to be somewhat complete before I can assign anyone a number at all. I was going backwards in time and how far back was still unknown, leaving only one option.

The “Sosa-Stradonitz” system (also known as the Ahnentafel system) is ancestor-based and it works by simply assigning each member a unique number, beginning with you as number 1. Then your father is assigned #2, your mother #3, your paternal grandfather #4, your paternal grandmother #5, etc. In this system, someone’s father’s number is always twice that person’s number, and that person’s mother’s number is twice plus one. It sounds simple and effective, and it is if you are only tracking your direct bloodline. My problem was that I wanted to include collateral relatives and for this, the widely popular Ahnentafel system alone wouldn’t cut it. It was suggested that a second system was needed to combine with it – a descendant-based one, to catch all of those stray uncles, aunts and cousins, but I just wasn’t comfortable with doing it that way. It sounded untidy, or to describe it with my own made-up word, “un-uniform”. So despite the fact that genealogical societies everywhere frown on the layman who creates his own numbering system, I decided to give it a shot.

About 13 seconds after I began laying out the framework for my numbering system I discovered that this was going to require a steady supply of eye drops and coffee. It looked like it was going to involve diagrams, flow-charts and something I had not familiarized myself with in a long time – mathematics. I envisioned the “family tree” to be like an erupting geyser – shooting out from a single point, spreading outward as it rises up as far as it can go, reaching its apex, then falling back down to the ground, spattering randomly all over the place while covering a wide radius. And I wanted a system that would give a meaningful number to every individual – one that would uniquely mark them as if it was part of their DNA. However, I did not expect that this was going to be neat and tidy… or any easier.

The idea was to build each person’s unique number from a collection of data according to where they placed themselves in the tree in relation to my position in it. My first two identifiers would be the ‘Generation’ and the ‘Family Line’ (or ‘Line’) numbers.

Generation Numbers

Generation (G) numbers are simple. They begin with a ‘G’ followed by two characters to indicate a relative generation to my own, which is G number ‘00’. For example, my father’s G number is ‘01’ to indicate one generation prior to my own. All of my father’s siblings also have a G number of ‘01’, as do my mother and her siblings. My grandparents and their siblings all have a G number of ‘02’, my great-grandparents a G number of ‘03’ and so on. Moving ahead from there towards the present day, my great aunts and great uncles all have a G number of ‘02’, while all of their children (my aunts and uncles) have a G number of ‘01’, and their grandchildren (my cousins, without any generational removal) a G number of ‘00’, same as mine. Moving forward even more, I assign my own son a G number of ‘0A’ to indicate one generation after my own. Continuing on, should I have any grandchildren someday, they will have a G number of ‘0B’ and so on. Letters are easy to distinguish from numbers and therefore it is painless to determine which generation relative to mine anyone in the tree belongs to.

Line Numbers

Here’s where it starts getting more interesting. I wanted Line (L) numbers to represent which bloodline any given member belongs to and therefore essentially how close of a relative that person is to me, relatively speaking. L numbers have three digits and start at ‘001’ – my own L number. From there we move backwards paternally, giving my father an L number of ‘001’, as well as his father, and his father’s father, and so on. Following the paternal blood line all the way backward, the males ALL have an L number of ‘001’. It follows then that my mother belongs to L number ‘002” as does her father, and her father’s father, and so on. I’ve chosen the traditional concept of following paternal lines primarily to keep things as organized as possible. The next line in the pecking order is my father’s mother’s paternal line, which is L number ‘003’, followed by my mother’s mother’s paternal line which is L number ‘004’, and so on. The further back in time we go, the more difficult it gets to follow, but the chart below helps (I think):

L Number / Follows

001 / Father’s paternal line

002 / Mother’s paternal line

003 / Father’s mother’s (grandmother’s) paternal line

004 / Mother’s mother’s (grandmother’s) paternal line

005 / Father’s father’s mother’s (great-grandmother’s) paternal line

006 / Mother’s father’s mother’s (great-grandmother’s) paternal line

007 / Father’s mother’s mother’s (great-grandmother’s) paternal line

008 / Mother’s mother’s mother’s (great-grandmother’s) paternal line

009 / Father’s father’s father’s mother’s (g-g-grandmother’s) paternal line

010 / Mother’s father’s father’s mother’s (g-g-grandmother’s) paternal line

and so on…

To see this concept in visual form, I’ve created the chart shown at the upper left of this blog post. On this chart, I’m sitting humbly in the center surrounded by five generations of direct ancestors (62 ancestors in total). My father and his ancestors fill the left side of the chart, while my mother and her ancestors fill the right. The numbers inside the circles indicate L numbers, and as each circle branches out to two other circles, the lower L number represents the male, the other is the female. As you can see, this is a nice, symmetrical, mathematical model and can of course be taken back any number of additional generations (but then it starts to look messy). Generations on this chart are differentiated by the colours of the circles, with the outermost white circles representing the oldest generation, of course.

Here’s where it starts getting confusing. If the outermost generation on this chart represents the ‘geyser’s apex’ i.e. if we decided, starting at that generation, to move back toward the present again, we can carry that generation’s L numbers forward and include all of their other descendants. One general rule is that everyone has one of their parents’ L numbers, whichever one is lower, so if we start at G number ‘05’ the highest L number carried down the line all the way to the present day is ‘016’. Therefore, my own generation (G number ‘00’) has 16 different family lines, and very loosely speaking the lower the person’s L number, the closer that person is related to me.

The other general rule allows for the pick-up of all siblings and spouses outside of my direct ancestral lines. It states that all siblings have the same L number as each other, and, with the exception of my direct blood ancestors, all spouses of blood ancestors pick up that ancestor’s L number, although the end of their identification number shows an ‘M’ to indicate that the person has “married into” the family tree (e.g. G03L007…M1).

My next blog post will explain how I am able to differentiate families within the same family line…