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THE SOSA-STRADONITZ SYSTEM OR AHNENTAFEL NUMBERING SYSTEM

One of the most used worldwide method for numbering one's ancestors is known as The Sosa-Stradonitz System [or Ahnentafel¹ Numbering System] after the Spanish genealogist Hieronymus / Jérôme de Sosa and after the German genealogist Stephan KEKULÉ von STRADONITZ.

The first printed version of this arrangement dates back to 1590, when an Austrian nobleman, diplomat, historian and publicist named Michel Freiherr von AITZING [Aitsingerus, Aitzinger, Aitsinger, Aitying, Aitying, Aytzing, Eitzing, Eytzing, Eitzinger, Eyzinger, Etzying, Heyzinger; B~1530, Obereitzing / Inn, Austria; D 1598, Bonn] used it for the first time in his book on European princely and royal houses “Thesaurus principum hac aetate in Europa viventium: quo progenitores eorum, tam paterni quam materni, simul ac fratres et sorores, inde ab origine reconduntur, usque ad annum a Christo nato 1590. Libellus historiarum studiosis non minus utilis, quam cognitu necessaries”, G.(ustav von) Kempensem, Cologne / Köln, first edition 1590, 223 pg. (second edition in 1591, 263 pg.; third edition 1592).

The method was used then by Hieronymus / Jérôme de SOSA in his work from 1676 “Noticia de la gran Casa de los Marqueses de Villafranca”.

In 1883, Sir Francis GALTON [B 16.02.1822, Sparkbrook (Birmingham, West Midlands), D 17.01.1911, Haslemere, London], sent a letter, concerning an "Arithmetic Notation of Kinship", to the editor of Nature review [no. 28 from 6.09.1883, pg. 435], in which he briefly describes the Sosa-Stradonitz system named by him the Sequential System.

But it was Stephan KEKULÉ von STRADONITZ [B 1.05.1863, Gent, Belgium; D 5.05.1933, Berlin] who popularized on large scale the method in his book “Ahnentafel-Atlas. Ahnentafeln zu 32 Ahnen der Regenten Europas und ihrer Gemahlinnen”, Berlin, Stargardt-V, 1898-1904.

Stephan’s father was the well-known chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, descended from a Czech line of a Bohemian noble family:

B 7.09.1829 in Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany.