SNGF: Henry Numbers

Randy Seaver is back from his genealogy cruise and back to challenging geneabloggers with his Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. This week's challenge (see http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/10/saturday-night-genealogy-fun-what-is.html ) asks us to:

1. Go to our first known ancestor with our birth surname and calculate our Henry Number from that person. Show each generation of your line of ancestors with your birth surname with their Henry numbers.
2. How did you calculate the Henry numbers? What do these numbers tell you?
3. Tell what you did in your own blog post.....

My responses:
1.  My first known ancestor with my birth surname is Peter SCHARFENSTEIN (1655-1713). Here is my descent from him:
1                    Peter Scharfenstein (1655-1713)
11                  Matthias Scharfenstein (1678-1756; immigrant ancestor)
111                Johann Moritz Scharfenstein [aka Morris Sharp] (1714-1781)
1118              Morris Sharp/Scharfenstein (1750-1823)
11186            Morris Sharp (1796- ? )
111868          Morris T Sharp (1834-1917)
1118681        Alvah Clyde Sharp (1871-1923) *
11186811      Harold Herbert Sharp (1893-1934) *
111868112    Alva Curtis Sharp (1917-1978)
1118681123   Virginia Leah Sharp (1948-Living)

* Denotes a son who was the eldest son with living children.

2. I generated an Outline Descendant Report in Family Tree Maker 2009 and manually added the Henry numbers, as I couldn't see a way to get FTM to do it. I'm not sure I have all the children for the first three generations of this list. I haven't focused much on this line for quite some time....like 25 years (?) 
     I was somewhat surprised to notice in doing this that I am doubly descended from Peter Scharfenstein. The Outline Descendant Report is 28 pages long. Through my direct male Sharp line I show up on page 22. But I also appear on page 6! As it turns out, Morris Sharp (11186) married Anna Mary Thomas (111312), a granddaughter of Anna Sharp [Scharfenstein] (1113). Notice that we have mis-matched generations here, which is not surprising given the birth positions, which are obvious in this numbering system.

Interesting system, but since I'm not sure I have all the children in all of the generations, it's probably not terribly accurate. And, of course, if you go another generation back, you have to start all over again!