Below is a fan chart showing paternal (left side) and maternal (right side) ancestors, each identified with unique Ancester Table Ancestor reference number, for up to 9 generations.  Clockwise from left to right, the geographical areas represented are: (paternal side) Carse of Gowrie, Strathardle and Strathtay, elsewhere in Gowrie, Carse of Gowrie (again), Lismore, elsewhere in Gowrie (again); and on the maternal side: Orkney (North Ronaldsay, Eday and Sanday) with Leith connections; Tiree; Strathnairn; and Stratherrick.

The ancestor table or Ahnentafel is like a big Brie or Camembert cheese, or pizza sliced into wedges.

How many wedges are yours?

Look up the Ahnentafel to find your own common ancestor, working from the centre out towards the edge. 

Every ancestor outward from that ancestor is also one of yours.

To simplify things, if you are a first cousin of me, one half of the Ahnentafel will be shared with you. 

The left side if your ancestors were Symons. 

The right side if they were Swanneys.

If you are a second cousin (my great-grandparent is your closest ancestor included in the Ahnentafel), one quarter of the Ahnentafel will include your ancestors. 

And so on and so forth.

Step-parenting relationships are very common in Scottish population history.

They become more common the further back in time one goes.

A surviving widower would usually remarry after the death of a spouse.  Widows on the other hand were not so likely to remarry, but it did happen (William Linklater Swanney [24] married a widow, Jane Halcrow Wilson, after he was widowed by the death of his first wife, Betsy Wards [25], but this was not very common).

The result is that in any given generation only one of the two parents included in the Ahnentafel may be a common ancestor of yours.

Examples include David Reid [30], who had been widowed and had already had children by that previous marriage when he married Catherine McKenzie [31], and - as mentioned above - William Linklater Swanney [24], who had two sons by his second marriage after the death of first wife Betsy Wards [25]. 

If you can think of a Scottish food that is round and sliced into wedges do let me know.  Pancake?

Only a tiny proportion of the total possible number of drop-chart descendent diagrams have been prepared.