I’ve received some questions about how the numbering system works in the family tree. I’ve copied the full description here for your convenience.

The system I use is not proprietary and I encourage everyone working with the early Babbs of the United States to include the tree number as an AKA/Person ID in their work. I’ve chosen the Person ID for my work.

The system was employed by Jean A. Sargent who wrote the Babb Families of America books. She only published work for the US trees and thus the system was only ever employed in those lineages.

Without this system, keeping track of which John Babb I’m discussing becomes virtually impossible. By always using the system, you make sure you don’t make incorrect assertions.

The system is known as the Modified Henry System. You can read more about the various systems in use throughout the world of genealogy here: (Genealogical numbering systems – Wikipedia).

The New Numbering System

You will notice that most US Babb descendants have a Person ID that is a number. This keeps with the system used by Jean A. Sargent with a few of my own modifications which I will discuss in a moment.

The numbers/letters indicate the order of known children of the parents; and the numbers typically indicate the birth order. As I expanded on Jean’s work, I came across children that were not covered in her work. As she had already issued books associating people with certain numbers, I refrained from changing those. So, if your ancestor was in her book, your number should remain unchanged. If they were discovered out of order and a number was already assigned then, the numbers will NOT reflect the actual birth order.

There is no way to easily modify the numbers of each descendant, so I elected to keep them as they are. Additionally, Jean left 17,000 pages of documentation that are stored using the numbers she assigned. Note that you should find them in the correct birth order in the report.

Why do we still have this system? Technically we really don’t need the system anymore as the Genealogy program keeps things in order. It also makes it easier to find certain people with common given names.

Since we are concerned with several major groupings of families, all the descendants of Phillip of the Isles of Shoals begin with “1”. Each line that starts with a number other than 1 either belongs to a different lineage or has not yet been linked via the paper trail or DNA with Phillips lineage.

The children of a Babb Female will typically have a different surname and along with that they are lettered rather than numbered. Once you go to letters you never go back with the single exception of marrying back into the Babb Line. There are a few instances of that and although the person technically has 2 and in some cases 3 different numbers the lineage that contains the longest set of numbers, before crossing over to letters is set as the preferred number. In other words, the Babb male’s lineage is given precedence, and his line number is used from there on out.

The Henry System

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.

The Modified Henry System

The derivative of the system created by Henry, made a very small change. The only difference you will denote is when there are more than 10 children involved. Look at the last line of this section to see the difference.

Jean’s Update to the System that was a Derivative of the System Created by Henry

Not having a computer, Jean did her work by hand and typed her books out on an electric typewriter. As the typewriter didn’t have an option for her modifications, she manually underlined children’s numbers if they were born of a second wife. A third wife had a double underscore.

She also added dashes between each generation to promote clarity. I prefer her adaptation of the Modified Henry System.

This approach is completely unnecessary with the advent of modern Genealogy programs and thus you will only see it in her Babb Families of America books.

Dan’s Corollary on Jean’s Update of the System that was a Derivative of the System Created by Henry.

I use the equal sign “=” to indicate where we have departed Jean’s work and entered my own. As there have only been two genealogists for the Babb Family Association since 1989, this was an easy way to denote my work from hers.

I also mark the leaving of the Babb Surname or the end of a line with a period “.” So, you can easily see when the change takes place. I have sourced new entries so you will know where I got them.

A second period “.” indicates that the person left no offspring. Thus that is the last leaf on that branch of the tree.

For example:

Phillip:            1 Immigrant ancestor
Philip:             1-2 2nd son of Immigrant ancestor
Hulda:             1-2-7=. The number of a daughter of the above
John Gregory: 1-2-7=.A. The child of Hulda with no descendants

The above is merely an example. In reality John Gregory did have children.