A few years ago I received a family tree from Norway. There were numbers behind the family names; Example: John Doe ( 139439) Mary Smith ( 38164) There was an explanation for the numbers. Somewhere I lost it. Could someone explain to me what the purpose of the numbers were and how to use them. Thank You Sincerely, Vi Martin

Violet, If this tree was on a genealogy software package when it was created, they may be the numbers the software assigned to the individual for tracking purposes. Just a guess. On Thu, Apr 30, 2015 at 10:16 AM, VIOLET MARTIN via <norway@rootsweb.com> wrote: > A few years ago I received a family tree from Norway. > There were numbers behind the family names; > Example: John Doe ( 139439) > Mary Smith ( 38164) > > There was an explanation for the numbers. > Somewhere I lost it. Could someone > explain to me what the purpose of the numbers > were and how to use them. > Thank You > > Sincerely, Vi Martin > Norwaylist Archiveshttp:// > archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index?list=norway > > RESUBSCRIBE UNSUB > http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/NOR/NORWAY.html > > guidelines http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~norway/guidelines.htm > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > NORWAY-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message > -- *John K Peterson*Summer Residence Deer Run Estates Lake Delton, Wisconsin

Vi - I think the others have it correct: those are numbers assigned by someone else's genealogy program - the person whose work you said you obtained. In 2000 when I first made contact with living relatives (5th cousins) in Norway, one of them was a genealogy researcher and we did a massive exchange of information before I had my spinal fusion surgery (I was using computers at the public library before getting my own a year later), and he had numbers for everyone. I had info on descendants of emigrants to send to him, and he sent me info on our mutual ancestors. When I got my own computer, then a laptop and compatible genealogy program, I put his name + ID numbers in the Notes section for the persons and connections he had so where we had duplicates he would know what to do with the information. [ALL of my documentation goes in the Notes sections in chronological order for each person in my genealogy database. The reason I love the program I got is that it mimics how I kept my documentation in my original notebooks many years ago: family group or person sheet + info & documents filed right behind that, and now with the computer genealogy program the Notes get printed out right along with the data for the person listed in the family group sheet or person sheet.] This was before Digitalarkivet put images online, although we were lucky and that region our mutual ancestors came from had/has much transcribed data. The fifth cousin with the genealogy program died a few years ago, so now there is no need for the numbers which only meant something to his individual genealogy program. No one took over his data. Much more transcribed data - and now images - have been added in Digitalarkivet. In the intervening years I've added image information to my genealogy program, more transcribed data, and I miss the congenial sharing of information. He was such a very nice person and I can't help but think it would have been so much fun to share the data and images for our mutual family members after they came online, and think that he would have been so pleased that so much more data has been found for them, including the images we didn't have access to when he was still alive. My own genealogy program has the ability to assign numbers, but I disabled it. I think in terms of names..., not numbers..., none of which make any sense to me, since there is no rhyme or reason to the numbers. It just assigns random numbers to each person as I add them (e.g., when I added the four infants who died or were stillborn for my paternal grandparents - many years after my original documentation of the nine siblings I knew about - the numbering sequence for the additional four was many thousands later than the original addition of my father and his then-known siblings). Since I think in terms of names, even a kind of pedigree diagram in my head, as I enter data, the numbers are totally unnecessary for my purposes, so I just disabled the feature, even though I can see the numbers if I turn it on. My best advice is to ignore the numbers, delete them. They only matter to the genealogy program of the person who first entered the information in his/her genealogy program and have no bearing on how you enter your data in your genealogy program; your own genealogy program would assign its own numbers. If your source documentation or miscellaneous notes includes the name of the person from whom you got the info, you can include that name for credit, and include her/his document number - but it is still meaningless to your own genealogy program's documentation. [I'm assuming you got your own documents and verified this other person's data, not just collected names and copied someone else's work.] Best Wishes, Bev ----- Original Message ----- From: VIOLET MARTIN via <norway@rootsweb.com> To: NORWAY-L@rootsweb.com Cc: Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2015 10:16 AM Subject: [NOR] family tree A few years ago I received a family tree from Norway. There were numbers behind the family names; Example: John Doe ( 139439) Mary Smith ( 38164) There was an explanation for the numbers. Somewhere I lost it. Could someone explain to me what the purpose of the numbers were and how to use them. Thank You Sincerely, Vi Martin