Numbers are by default included in Behold for each person and also their spouse. This helps to easily identify who the person is, and it allows you to quickly find the person from a printout of the Everything Report.
In formal genealogy, there are several different numbering systems. Some like ahnentafel numbers are designed for ancestor reports and number a specific person as 1, the parents as 2 and 3, grandparents 4, 5, 6 and 7, and so on. Others like the Register system are designed for descendant reports and give numberings such as 1.4.2 to represent the 2nd child of the 4th child of the 1st child.
But there is no formal system that works well for defining all relatives of a person. You could theoretically combine the two different systems together to give numbers like: 5-1.4.2, but there are several major problems when you do this.
1. If there are many generations, the numbers can get long and become hard to use.
2. It gets tricky to find the number you want with eye-twisting numbers such as 2.3.5.3.2.4 and 2.2.5.3.2.2.4.
3. These numbers would be useful if each one was permanently assigned to a specific person, but that cannot happen because many numbers may be forced to change if even one newly found relative is included.
4. This will still not work if you want to number all the relatives of several different people. Some extra indicator is still needed to identify the starting relative, e.g. REL1-5-1.4.2.
So Behold takes a simpler approach. Behold gives you a simple numbering system that identifies families with a number and/or ID. Within each family, the people are simply numbered sequentially.
The purpose of numbering in Behold is simply to help find people in the report. This is NOT intended to be used as a permanent ID for each person. The numbering is dynamic and will change depending on who you include and the order you display them.
In our sample program, people in Stephen James McCarthy's family are numbered MCC-1 to MCC-137. People in Lawrence Cada's family are numbered CAD-1 to CAD-24. Those related through marriage are numbered RM-1 to RM-12. These numbers are each assigned to both of the individuals in a two person marriage or partnership or to a single person if there is no listed spouse or partner. The prefix of each number (MCC, CAD and RM) gives you a hint as to which family the person belongs to, and the numeric part tells you whether you'll need to scroll up or down in the file to find them.
