2010-04-26 Ahnen Chaos

Ahnen Ahnung

confusiahn

three things

The first three articles in this Ahnen Ahnung Quadrology are about ahnentafel, ahnenlist and ahnen numbering respectively. Each article focuses on one concept, to be as clear as possible about what it is, and to further minimise confusion between these three related but different concepts, each article contains brief notes about what it is not.

If you read those three articles, you know that an ahnentafel is a tabular presentation format suitable for quick overview of a limited number of generations, that an ahnenlist is a textual presentation format that can provide all the basic data on many generations of ancestors, and that ahnen numbering is the numbering system commonly used with ahnenlists.

The separate discussion of the three different concept in three distinct articles is no superfluous luxury. There is a lot of ahnentafel abusage, misinformation and plain confusion. The confusiahn is not limited to a few fringe publications. Major genealogy sites and leading genealogy software applications are seriously confused.

What’s worse, the confusiahn is not limited to mere confusion of the three terms with each other. It is true that many authors abuse ahnentafel as if it means ahnen numbering, and that some even mistakenly claim that’s what it means. It is true that lots of software abuses ahnentafel as if it means ahnenlist and that their help files contain erroneous definitions.
Sadly, the current confusiahn does not stop there, but is rife with pleonasms and oxymora, and various software has help files that contradict the software itself.
The current abusage of the ahnen terms is complete chaos.

pleonasms and oxymora

A lot of software does not just erroneously refer to ahnenlist as ahnentafel, but does so as part of some nonsensical oxymoron or pleonasm such as ahnentafel chart or ahnentafel report.

ahnentafel table

Ahnentafel is German for pedigree table, so ahnentafel table is a pleonasm, like RAM memory, ISBN number, dead corpse or free gift. Saying ahnentafel table is like saying pedigree table table, yet it is ridiculously common.

Ahnentafel table is a pleonasm, and ahnentafel chart is an oxymoron.

ahnentafel chart

Ahnentafel table is a pleonasm, and ahnentafel chart is an oxymoron. The phrase ahnentafel chart makes as much sense as square circle; it contradicts itself. Ahnentafel is German for pedigree table, so saying ahnentafel chart is like saying pedigree table chart. That is rather confused. An Ahnentafel isn’t a chart, it is a table.

ahnentafel report

Ahnentafel report is another pleonasm. An Ahnentafel (ancestor table) is a particular kind of report, so the expression ahnentafel report is about as sensible as book publication.

ahnentafel list

Another confused form I encountered is ahnentafel list. An ahnentafel is a table, not a list, so ahnentafel list is yet another oxymoron. This abusage usually refers to ahnenlist, but if we replace ahnentafel with ahnenlist, the oxymoron becomes the pleonasm ahnenlist list: ancestor list list.

ahnentafel system

There is no such thing as an ahnentafel system. The ahnen numbering system is historically known as the ahnentafel numbering system, and that may be shortened to ahnentafel numbering; you can leave of system, but not numbering. Best of all is to avoid feeding the current confusiahn; by not using the word ahnentafel at all when referring to the numbering system, and calling it ahnen numbering instead.

Ahnentafel Pedigree Chart

Perhaps the worst confusiahn I’ve encountered is Kindred Keepsakes’ Ahnentafel Pedigree Chart (ancestors table pedigree chart), a convoluted phrase they do not use for either an ahnentafel or an ahnenlist, but for a circular fan chart with ahnen numbers on it.

ahnentafel book report

An ahnentafel book is a book of ahnentafels, like Stephan Kekulé von Stradonitz’s Ahnentafel-Atlas. Few people make such books, and most occurrences of the term are ahnen abusage not unlike ahnentafel report; a misinformed oxymoron that is used while ahnenlist is meant. Some authors even use ahnentafel book report: ancestor table book report. That is a double oxymoron.

state of confusiahn

A quick browse through major genealogy and reference sites, well-known and lesser known genealogy software.

web sites

Google Translate

The literal translation of the German word ahnentafel is ancestor table; an ahnentafel is a table of ancestors. Common English terminology for ahnentafel is pedigree table. Google Translate gets this wrong, it translates ahnentafel as pedigree (sans table).

Wikipedia

The first google hit for ahentafel is the Wikipedia article about ahnentafel. It is a fine example of confusiahn; The first sentence correctly states that ahnentafel is German for ancestor table, yet it goes on to incorrectly equate ahnentafel with ahnenreihe (not even the same as ahnenlist) and then goes on to define it as a numbering system...

The Simple English Wikipedia is no better; it claims that an ahnentafel is a family tree where people are shown in a numbered list instead of a tree.; yes, it really misdefines ahnentafel as a tree that is a numbered list.

Ancestry.com

Just below that is a confused blog post by Ancestry.com author Dick Eastman. His Ahnentafel Explained post begins with the statement that the word probably confuses most newcomers, only to display the authors own confusion between ahnentafel and ahnenlist, while the post is mostly about ahnentafel numbering instead of either ahnentafel or ahnenlist. Many other google hits for ahnentafel are for copies of this confused and mistaken blog post.

FamilySearch

The FamilySearch glossary misdefines ahnentafel as A table that lists the name and date and place of birth, marriage, and death for an individual and specified number of his or her ancestors. That is incorrect, most ahnentafel simply do not have room for so much vital data, and the idea that ahnentafel include a specified number of ancestors is ridiculous, ahnentafel normally include all known ancestors for a fixed number of generations.

The ostensible ahnentafel definition continues to explain ahnen numbering (something else), and then appends the remark that ahnentafel is German for ancestor chart (it is not) or ancestor table.

The final sentence is This chart is also called a continental pedigree.. The confusing term continental pedigree seems made up by FamilySearch; practically all google hits for this term are for FamilySearch and PAF.

About.com

In a blog post similar to the Ancestry.com post, About.com Guide Kimberly Powell misinforms the reader that an ahnentafel is an ancestor based numbering system.
The About.com genealogy glossary definition is even worse, by sloppily defining ahnentafel as A numbering system used to identify each individual in a family tree - which is not even a correct statement for ahnentafel numbering! Ahnen numbering is rarely used with family trees, and does not assign a number to every individual in a family tree, but to the proband and their ancestors only.

Familypedia

The Familypedia entry for Ahnentafel does not define ahnentafel at all, but provides an explanation of ahnentafel numbers instead…

Encyclopædia Britannica

The word ahnentafel does not occur in the Encyclopædia Britannica Online.

Dictionary.com

Dictionary.com has no definition for ahnentafel.

blogs

There are many genealogy blogs that occasionally use the word ahnentafel, even a few blog post that claim to explain ahnentafel. All seem to have let themselves be misinformed by Wikipedia, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch and other sources - such as the genealogy software they use.

genealogy software

Ahnentafel and Ahnenlist

A lot of genealogy software claims to support ahnentafel tables, ahnentafel charts, or ahnentafel reports but does not support ahnentafel at all. Most software for which the vendors make some confused ahnentafel claim only support ahnenlist. More often than not, the user interface and online help do not just confuse ahnentafel, ahnenlist and ahnen numbering with each other but confuses further by layering pleonasm and oxymora on top of that as well.

FamilySearch Personal Ancestral File (PAF)

The closest PAF comes to supporting an ahnentafel is its pedigree report. PAF support ahnenlist but mislabels it with the oxymoron ahnentafel chart (literally: ancestor table chart, while it is neither a table nor a chart). Weirdly, while PAF abuses ahnentafel for ahnenlist, the glossary in the online help states that an ahnentafel chart is a table.
So, FamilySearch would have you believe that ahnentafel chart is a bona fide concept, defines that chart as a table, but uses it for a non-tabular report…

Family Tree Maker 16

Family Tree Maker 16 does not support ahnentafel.

The awkward user interface makes it less than obvious, but Family Tree Maker 16 does support ahnenlist; you first need to generate a Genealogy report, then click the Report Type button to choose between Register, NGS Quarterly and Ahnentafel. The Family Tree Maker 16 user interface mislabels the ahnenlist as an ahnentafel, but the report itself does not, its heading starts with Ancestors of.

The glossary in the online help has an entry for ahnentafel, which correctly states that ahnentafel is German for ancestor table, but goes on to misinform the user by confusing ahnentafel and ahnentafel numbering: In addition to being a chart, it also refers to a genealogical numbering system..

Even if you allow for confusion between ahnentafel and ahnenlist, Ancestry.com’s claim that New Family Tree Maker supports ahnentafel is still false advertising.

Family Tree Maker 2010

Family Tree Maker 16 is the last version of Family Tree Maker Classic. It was followed by Family Tree Maker 2008, the first version of New Family Tree Maker. That first version did not support creation of an ahnenlist.

Ancestry.com claims that it added support for ahnentafel in Family Tree Maker 2008 Service Pack 2 Revision 2, but that is not true. New Family Tree Maker does not support ahnentafel and even Family Tree Maker 2010 still does not support ahnenlist.

Family Tree Maker 2010 offers what Ancestry.com calls an Ahnentafel Report and a Simple Ahnentafel Report; but neither is an ahnentafel or an ahnenlist. Both an ahnentafel and an ahnenlist focus on ancestors, those mislabelled New Family Tree Maker reports do not. The New Family Tree Maker reports include all children of all ancestors, and there is no option to turn that additional information off.

Even if you allow for confusion between ahnentafel and ahnenlist, Ancestry.com’s claim that Family Tree Maker 2010 supports ahnentafel is still false advertising. Family Tree Maker 2010 supports various report formats, but does not support either ahnentafel or ahnenlist.

The Family Tree Maker 2010 help file entry for Ahnentafel Report is completely confused. It claims that This report is not used as frequently as other Genealogy Reports for formal presentations of pedigree because it records two family lines in the same report..

MyBlood 1.2

MyBlood does not support either ahnentafel or ahnenlist.

RootsMagic 4

RootsMagic does not support ahnentafel. RootsMagic does support ahnenlist, but the RootsMagic user interface and online help refer to the ahnenlist as an ahnentafel and the ahnenlist starts with the heading Ahnentafel of. That is not as bad as PAF’s Ahnentafel Chart of but it is still wrong.

Legacy Family Tree 7.4

Legacy does not support ahnentafel. Legacy does support ahnenlist.

The help instructions for creating a so-called ahnentafel report refer to the non-existing Report menu item Ahnentafel (Ancestor) Book....
The help entry for Ahnentafel Reports starts with the claim that An Ahnentafel report is a book-style report, which is plenty confused already, but Legacy’s online help goes on to call the ahnenlist an Ahnentafel (Ancestors) Book. Not only is an ahnentafel something else than an ahnenlist and is ahnentafel book as much an oxymoron as ahnenlist report is, Millennia additionally manages to incorrectly suggest that ahnentafel can be translated as ancestors.

Legacy Charting 7.0

Legacy Charting does not support either ahnentafel or ahnenlist.

Aldfaer 4.2

Aldfaer 4.2 does not support ahnentafel. Aldfaer support ahnenlist.
Aldfaer uses Dutch terminology throughout; its ahnenlist is called an afstammingreeks.

Brother’s Keeper 6.4

Brother’s Keeper does not support ahnentafel. Brother’s Keeper does support ahnenlist under the menu item Ahnentafel book.
Brother’s Keeper’s weirdly labelled menu item Ahnentafel custom list has nothing to do with either ahnentafel or ahnenlist.
The Brother’s Keeper help file talks about an ahnentafel book style report.

Cognatio 1.4

Cognatio failed to import a PAF GEDCOM and its user interface for entering persons and relationships manually is horrible, but it will create an Ancestor List. The user interface does not use German and the help file does not mention either ahnentafel or ahnenlist either.
Cognatio does not support ahnentafel but does support ahnenlist.

Deudos 5.1

Deudos has very limited reporting capabilities. Deudos supports neither ahnentafel nor ahnenlist.
Deudos seems to have been discontinued; there have not been any updates in years, and the former domain is nothing but a page of affiliate links now.

Embla Family Treasures 8

A problem in trying to use Embla Family Treasures is that the supposedly English user-interface contains, among other things, a Norwegian list of reports.

Embla Family Treasures does not support ahnentafel. Embla Family Treasures does not support ahnenlist either; its overview of ancestors (Forfredebok) is not limited to ancestors, but lists all the children for each couple.

MyHeritage Family Tree Builder 4

MyHeritage Family Tree Builder 4 does not support ahnentafel. It does not support ahnenlist either. It features an ancestry report, but it isn’t an ahnenlist. While Family Tree Maker and Embla Family Treasures add a list of all children after each couple, Family Tree Builder adds the parents after each individual, and there is no option to turn this off.
Family Tree Builder has no help file, and annoyingly re-downloads the Adobe PDF user guide every time you choose to access it. That user guide does not even contain the word ahnentafel.

The Master Genealogist 7

The Master Genealogist (TMG) 7 does not support ahnentafel. TMG 7 does support ahnenlist, but refers to it with the oxymoron ahnentafel report. The help file claims that the ahnentafel report (ahnenlist) has its own numbering system; that is nonsense. Ahnen numbering can be used with ahnentafel, with ahnenlists, and with many other presentation formats, such a fan charts.
TMG 7 additionally refers to an ancestral line as an Ahnentafel - Direct Line.

Daub Ages! 1.53

Daub Ages! does not support ahnentafel. Daub Ages! can create an ahnenlist, which starts with the heading Ancestors of.
There is no help file. There is a user manual, but the word ahnentafel does not occur in it.

GRAMPS 3.1

GRAMPS does not support ahnentafel. GRAMPS does support ahnenlist, but the user interface mislabels it an Ahnentafel Report, and each ahnenlist it produces also starts with the heading Ahnentafel Report for.
GRAMPS does not come with a help file or a user manual. The menu item user manual leads to the GRAMPS Wiki. The GRAMPS Wiki does not define ahnentafel, but has an Ahnentafel Report page, which is actually about GRAMPS’ support for ahnenlist.

false advertising

Not one application I looked at supports ahnentafel. Several applications, such as New Family Tree Maker, do not even support ahnenlist, but it sure seems that all vendors claiming ahnentafel support are guilty of false advertising.
Many that do support ahnenlist mislabel it as an ahnentafel, or worse, some oxymoron like ahnentafel chart (ancestor table chart), while an ahnenlist is neither a table nor a chart.

Genealogy vendors should lead by example; either use terms correctly or not use them at all.

leading by example

I hope that the various genealogy vendors will fix their product, that when someone reads this a few years from now, they will find it hard to believe that it used to be such a mess once.

The help file or user manual provided with a genealogy software does not need to rival a genealogy dictionary, but it should not misinform either. Genealogy vendors should lead by example; either use terms correctly or not use them at all. All reports should have correct names and proper report headings.

magazines

A Google search for ahnentafel chart results in thousands of hits. Many of these were created by FamilySearch’s Personal Ancestral File (PAF). PAF starts each Ahnenlist it makes with the erroneous Ahnentafel Chart for instead of Ahnenlist for.

That a Google search for ahnentafel table does not come up empty is not very surprising, but a Google Books Search finds the erroneous phrase in Everton’s Genealogical Helper, in The Searcher by the Southern California Genealogical Society, and in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

Everyone slips up once in a while, so these occurrences are not all that surprising. They certainly aren’t embarrassing. On the contrary, the fact that a Google Books search for this erroneous phrase turned up just one hit for each of these publication is actually a testament to quality of their editorial staff. With all major genealogy sites and software misinforming researchers, one can only wonder how often the editors have to suffer ahnentafel oxymora and pleonasms.

ahnung

ahnarchy

This brief tour through the sites and the software that many genealogists get their education from makes it painfully clear that users are being miseducated. Most site and software authors have no ahnung what an ahnentafel is and do not even seem to grok that ahnentafel, ahnenlist and ahnen numbering are three different things. Most seem to do little more than copy and rewrite nonsense from Ancestry.com, FamilySearch and each other, complete with confusing contradictions, oxymora and pleonasms.

Humpty Dumpty

Some may think that it best to follow Humpty Dumpty’s idea; that when they use a word it means just what they choose it to mean, neither more nor less - or at least try to argue that ahnentafel has changed meaning.

The idea that the word changed meaning might be somewhat tenable if all those who use it wrongly agree on a new meaning, but there is no such consensus at all. One claims it means ahnenlist, while another insist it mean ahnen numbering - and that is only a superficial description of the current chaos that does not begin to take all the contradictions, oxymora and pleonasms into account.
Besides, changing the meaning would only makes things worse; if ahnentafel does not mean ahnentafel anymore, what are we going to call an ahnentafel? And who is going to tell the Germans that the Americans have decided to change the German language?

solutiahn

I call upon all web site, software, magazine, book and blog authors to end the ahnen chaos. Genealogy organisations and individuals, commercial and otherwise, have a moral responsibility to not just provide correct information, but also to actively remove misinformation, and to stop spreading or update products containing misinformation.

There are two ways out of the confusiahn: either use the German words correctly or opt to use English throughout.

Using English terms for English reports is very straightforward approach that is almost certain to avoid most mistakes currently being made. An English-only phrase like ancestor table chart is simply too obvious an oxymoron to remain uncorrected.

Part of being a genealogist is knowing and understanding genealogical terminology and using it correctly. You don’t have to use German words, but when you choose to use German words, you should learn what those words mean first, and then use those words correctly.