From Randy Seaver’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun
1) Do you know what a “Henry Number” is? It is a descendant numbering system from a specific person. The Wikipedia article for Genealogical Numbering Systems describes it as:
“The Henry System is a descending system created by Reginald Buchanan Henry for a genealogy of the families of the presidents of the United States that he wrote in 1935.[3] It can be organized either by generation or not. The system begins with 1. The oldest child becomes 11, the next child is 12, and so on. The oldest child of 11 is 111, the next 112, and so on. The system allows one to derive an ancestor’s relationship based on their number. For example, 621 is the first child of 62, who is the second child of 6, who is the sixth child of his parents. In the Henry System, when there are more than nine children, X is used for the 10th child, A is used for the 11th child, B is used for the 12th child, and so on. In the Modified Henry System, when there are more than nine children, numbers greater than nine are placed in parentheses.”
2) Go to your first known ancestor with your birth surname and calculate your Henry Number from that person. Show each generation of your line of ancestors with your birth surname with their Henry numbers.
3) How did you calculate the Henry numbers? What do these numbers tell you?
4) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment on this blog post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.
2) So I decided to give Randy’s challenge a go as it sounded interesting, even though the Henry system is not used that much here in Australia.
I did my paternal name side in the previous post and for equity and comparison have decided to also do my direct maternal line.
1 Martha Carter (1768 – 1852) 84 years
14 Sarah Ann Robinson (1798 – 1881) 83 years (4th child of 10)
142 Elizabeth Jelley (1825 – 1865) 40 years (1st child of 3)
1426 Lucy Evans (1860 – 1936) 76 years (6th child of 7)
14264 Violet Rollason (1885 – 1957) 72 years (4th child of 9)
142642 Myrtle Doris Weeks (1917 – 2001) 84 years (2nd of 2) Father died 1921
1436421 Violet Noreen Busby (1940 – 2012) 72 years (1 of 1)
14364212 Helen Violet Smith (1964 – Living) (2nd of 3)