This numbering system is the one I use for my genealogical records. I have read Mr. Pence's page on genealogical numbering systems and have disregarded everything he said. I had my reasons for doing this. I have come up with a system of numbering ancestors and descendants together. It should be able to tell you at a glance how the person is related to me. I derived this scheme by combining the best of several systems. If this ends up being a duplicate of a known system, please let me know.
You start with yourself. Male=1, Female=2. Every generation back you would add another number based on the persons sex. My father would be 11. My mother would be 12. 12112 would be;
1 2 1 1 2
my mother's father's father's mother
or my great great grand mother
This is traveling up the family tree. When you want to travel down, you signify the change in direction with a period. You then number the descendants in the order of their birth. My third child would be 1.3 .My cousin could be 122.62 .In cases where there are more than 9 children, an extension of the hexadecimal system would be used. 1 - 9 and then capital A - Z. This allows for 35 children. If anyone finds a problem with this limit, please email me.
To allow for marriages, divorces and adoptions the lower-case alphabet would be used. a = adopted, i = infidelity, s = spouse, x = ex-spouse. The guy my aunt married would be 111.2.s . My uncle's parents would be 111.2.s1 and 111.2.s2 . Children of his from a previous marriage could be 111.2.s.3 . Remember that the period changes the direction that you are going in. If my grandfather was married three times, his second time to my grandmother, his wives would be 121.1x, 122 and 121.s . Because an i, s or x will only come after a period, the number between it and the period will be the "number" of the partner. The Sultan's 35th wife could be 1.35s .In the case of adopted cousins, 111.32a .
In most cases, the shortest number should be used. My father is 11, but he could also be 111.3 . The numbers will get long enough by themselves.