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 i ...

– 5 May 1933, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

), was a German lawyer,

heraldist Heraldry is a discipline relating to the design, display and study of armorial bearings (known as armory), as well as related disciplines, such as vexillology, together with the study of ceremony, rank and pedigree. Armory, the best-known branch ...

and

genealogist Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kins ...

who popularized a

genealogical numbering system Several genealogical numbering systems have been widely adopted for presenting family trees and pedigree charts in text format. Among the most popular numbering systems are: Ahnentafel (Sosa-Stradonitz Method), and the Register, NGSQ, Henry, d'Abov ...

of ancestors. Stephan was the son of the prominent chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, descended from a

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * 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, Gr ...

family from Bohemia, 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 An ''ahnentafel'' (German for "ancestor table"; ) or ''ahnenreihe'' ("ancestor series"; ) is a genealogical numbering system for listing a person's direct ancestors in a fixed sequence of ascent. The subject (or proband) of the ahnentafel is l ...

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