Clan Identification
Sherbondy Family Association
Early on, the descendants of John Sherbondy were identified only by names and dates. This sometimes resulted in a very time consuming lineage for referring to someone, or, an ambiguous reference. In the third generation, for example, there are 4 John and 3 George Sherbondy’s. The Clan system was adopted for convenience of reference.
The Sherbondy Family is divided into several “Clans,” with each grandchild of John Sherbondy (#1) representing the ancestor of that particular clan. Each of these grandchildren whose line has been perpetuated to the present day is assigned a letter of the alphabet. Not all grandchildren have letters because some may have died young and had no descendants or some may have living descendants that we do not yet know about. For the latter case, certain letters have been reserved for use later when a new clan is identified and verified as a descendant of John.
The SFA uses these letters in correspondence, the web site, books and in The Sherbondy Beacon newsletters (in the 1980’s) to identify which Clan an individual is descended from, when known. When corresponding with or submitting information to the SFA, please indicate the Clan if known so we can include this in our documentation and in future correspondence and publications.
Some individuals will not have a Clan ID. Individuals who are not assigned Clan ID’s include John (#1), everyone in the 2nd generation and those in the third generation and later whose genealogy does not come forward to the present day. For these (3rd and later), you can find the branch they are from by following the genealogy of their individual identification number. The Clan ID column for these descendants will either have a period (.) or will have the individual identification number of the descendant.
Individuals who are unconnected to the descendants of John are given Clan “Z.” In addition, there are some entire branches whom are unconnected to John Sherbondy. The first few generations of these branches appear on a special “Unconnected Clan” chart. The individuals in these branches will each have the Clan “Z,” but in addition, they will have an individual identification number that associates them with one of the unconnected branches.
The Clan ID appears in the Master Name Index for each individual, to the right of their individual identification number (in the Adobe version) and just before their birth date (which appears when known). For more information on the individual identifications, please see the memo regarding the numbering system for individuals.