Descendant list

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A descendant list , also descendant list , is in the genealogy the representation of the descendants of a test person or a test person-parent pair as a continuous text, which means considerable space saving compared to the representation as a table of descendants .

While the number of ancestors of a test person is fixed in each generation , the exact number of offspring is unknown or uncertain. It is to be expected that with more detailed research, further persons can be found who then have to be added to the genealogy afterwards. The order within siblings is also unclear if the order of birth is not known.

For these reasons , no such ideal numbering can be found for a descendant list , nor for the family list and family table , as the Kekulé numbers for the ancestral list are. The practical expediency of the numbering depends on how many generations the list or table comprises and how extensive the total material is or how often the same descendants appear several times and in different generations. Descendant lists, especially those spanning the 19th century, have a tendency to explode by a factor of far greater than 2 in each generation. Modern methods of data processing do justice to a simple procedure that assigns a consecutive number (e.g. 362) to each known descendant and then each person by their own number and that of their father or mother (e.g. 110) in ascending line clearly identifies (in the example 362–110). Newly found descendants then simply receive an additional number, regardless of their position in the line of descendants. This system becomes clearer if a range of numbers is reserved for each generation, which theoretically cannot be exceeded. It is also common to add a Roman number for the respective generation of descendants.

The presentation of the respective personal data etc. in descendant lists is analogous to that in ancestral lists. Imitation, however, has its own methodological problems . Assuming a possibly famous test person who lived many generations ago (e.g. there are lists of descendants for Martin Luther and Adam Ries ), then thousands of descendants can be expected up to the present, whose complete identification may be practically impossible .

As one moves ever closer to the present, sources such as the address book , telephone directory , obituary , etc. and methods - such as questionnaires - play a role that are rarely used for family research. The family history researcher is also confronted here with questions of data protection . This research is of practical importance when looking for heirs for people who have died without their own biological descendants.

In theory, complete lists of descendants would be an ideal source for scientific evaluations , for example on population history and social mobility . In practice, however, the informative value of such work is limited by the even greater amount of work compared to lists of ancestors, as well as the fact that the completeness of descendant data is difficult to achieve or prove and thus due to problems of statistical representativeness .