Stephan Kekulé von Stradonitz (1 May 1863, in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

– 5 May 1933, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

), was a German

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

, heraldist and genealogist who popularized a genealogical numbering system of ancestors. Stephan was the son of the prominent chemist

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz Friedrich may refer to: Names * Friedrich (surname), people with the surname ''Friedrich'' * Friedrich (given name), people with the given name ''Friedrich'' Other * Friedrich (board game), a board game about Frederick the Great and the Seven Year ...

, descended from a Czech

noble A noble is a member of the nobility. Noble may also refer to: Places Antarctica * Noble Glacier, King George Island * Noble Nunatak, Marie Byrd Land * Noble Peak, Wiencke Island * Noble Rocks, Graham Land Australia * Noble Island, Great B ...

family from

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; cs, Čechy ; ; hsb, Čěska; szl, Czechy) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. Bohemia can also refer to a wider area consisting of the historical Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by the Bohem ...

, and his Belgian wife Stéphanie Drory. In 1898 Kekulé von Stradonitz published his interpretation of Eytzinger's and Sosa's method in his ''Ahnentafel-Atlas. Ahnentafeln zu 32 Ahnen der Regenten Europas und ihrer Gemahlinnen'', Berlin: J. A. Stargardt, 1898–1904, containing 79 charts of the sovereigns of Europe and their wives. This method became the most common method of numbering ancestors and is known as the Sosa–Stradonitz Method or Ahnentafel.

External links

The Sosa–Stradonitz System or Ahnentafel Numbering System
1863 births 1933 deaths German genealogists German untitled nobility German male non-fiction writers {{Germany-historian-stub