Tthere is an alternative to printing a line by line ancestral report via a numbering system. And that is to print it in alphabetical order by line.
This would be my preference - although I would think both could be accomodated by checking an optional box within the sofware.
For example, I currently have a total of 678 ancestors in approximately 150 lines (New England ancestry). A line by line presentation would call for 150 "chapters". The presentation would be much more readable and lines findable by simply having "Allen" as the first chapter and "Vail" as the last chapter, and all the other lines arranged alphabetically.
BTW, an accomodation would need to be made for lines where there are multiple lines of descent from a progenitor ancestor and the base person - probably setoff by "subchapters" or some such thing so that the whole line is isn't repeated for multiples lines from the same ancestor. I am descended by five lines from one Long Island ancestor and 2-4 times for several others. The information relative to ancestors by multiple lines in a presentation of an ahnentafel in FTM are currently repeated over and over. (FTM could handle this by saying on succussive entries for the same person: "68505 John Doe. See 32851 for biographical details of this person.)
This problem with handling multiple lines of descent will become a bigger problem for more Americans as people with New England ancestry spread deeper and deeper into the American blood stream. There were only 20,000 Puritans and their blood is currently in tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans at the present time.
This would be my preference - although I would think both could be accomodated by checking an optional box within the sofware.
For example, I currently have a total of 678 ancestors in approximately 150 lines (New England ancestry). A line by line presentation would call for 150 "chapters". The presentation would be much more readable and lines findable by simply having "Allen" as the first chapter and "Vail" as the last chapter, and all the other lines arranged alphabetically.
BTW, an accomodation would need to be made for lines where there are multiple lines of descent from a progenitor ancestor and the base person - probably setoff by "subchapters" or some such thing so that the whole line is isn't repeated for multiples lines from the same ancestor. I am descended by five lines from one Long Island ancestor and 2-4 times for several others. The information relative to ancestors by multiple lines in a presentation of an ahnentafel in FTM are currently repeated over and over. (FTM could handle this by saying on succussive entries for the same person: "68505 John Doe. See 32851 for biographical details of this person.)
This problem with handling multiple lines of descent will become a bigger problem for more Americans as people with New England ancestry spread deeper and deeper into the American blood stream. There were only 20,000 Puritans and their blood is currently in tens, if not hundreds, of millions of Americans at the present time.