It makes no sense to me either. Whatever the meaning, it is very clumsily worded.
It could mean that line-by-line presentations of ancestry are more common than ahnentafels because ahnentafels "mash" the concept of showing a line within the report. Thus, they are harder to follow, as you have to "jump" rungs of the ladder at a time to follow an ancestral line.
If you go into a library and look at published genealogies, most "ancestors of xx" books will be line-by-line and not in ahnentafel order. Before computers, ahnentafels were often presented in a "tabular" format (think spreadsheet); whereas line-by line ancestry reports would often use a narrative, register style format for each chapter. Computers have changed that and today we have register-style formats for ancestors in ahnentafel order. They are still harder to follow ancestral lines than a line-by-line approach.
It could mean that line-by-line presentations of ancestry are more common than ahnentafels because ahnentafels "mash" the concept of showing a line within the report. Thus, they are harder to follow, as you have to "jump" rungs of the ladder at a time to follow an ancestral line.
If you go into a library and look at published genealogies, most "ancestors of xx" books will be line-by-line and not in ahnentafel order. Before computers, ahnentafels were often presented in a "tabular" format (think spreadsheet); whereas line-by line ancestry reports would often use a narrative, register style format for each chapter. Computers have changed that and today we have register-style formats for ancestors in ahnentafel order. They are still harder to follow ancestral lines than a line-by-line approach.