The Elusive Ancestor
I went searching
for an ancestor, I can not find him still
He moved around
from place to place and did not leave a will
He married where
the courthouse burned. He mended all his fences
He avoided any
man who came to take the U.S. census
He always kept
his luggage packed, this man who had no fame
and every 20
years or so, this rascal changed his name
His parents
came from europe, they should be on some list
of passengers
to U.S.A., but somehow they got missed
And no one else
in the world is searching for this man
So, I play geneasolitare
to find him if i can
I'm told he's
buried in a plot, with a tombstone he was blessed
But the weather
took engravings and some vandals took the rest
He died before
the county clerks decided to keep records
No family bible
has emerged, in spite of all my efforts
To top it off,
this ancestor, who's caused me many groans
Just to give
me one more pain, betrothed a girl name jones
Genealogists
say the funniest things!!
These
quotes are actual correspondences received by the lds church
***We are sending
you 5 children in a separate envelope.
***My grandfather
died at the age of 3.
***Will you
please send me the name of my first wife? I have forgotten her name.
***The wife
of 22 could not be found. somebody suggested that she might have been stillborn-what
do you think?
***Further research
will be necessary to eliminate one of the parents.
***He and his
daughter are listed as not being born.
***Iwould like
to find out it i have any living relatives or dead relatives or ancestors
in my family.
***A 14 year
old boy wrote: "I do not want you to do the research for me. Will you please
send me all the material on the Welch line, in the US, England, and Scotland
countries? I will do the research".
***We lost our
grandmother, will you send us a copy?
A Genealogist's
Nightmare
Many many years
ago, when I was twenty-three
I got married
to a widow who was as pretty as can be
This widow had
a grown up daughter, who had hair of red
My father fell
in love with her and soon the two were wed
This made my
dad my son-in-law. and that changed my very life
My daughter
was my mother for she was my father's wife
To complicate
the matters worse, although it brought me joy
I soon became
the father of a bouncing baby boy
My little baby
then became a brother in law to dad
And so became
my uncle, though it made me very sad
For if he was
my uncle then that also made him brother
To the widow's
grown up daughter, who of course was my step-mother
And he became
my grandson, for he was my daughters son
My wife is now
my mother's mother and it makes me blue
Because, although
she is my wife she's my grandmother too
If my wife is
my grandmother then I am her grandchild
And every time
I think of it, it simply drives me wild
For now I have
become the strangest case you ever saw
As the husband
of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!!
The Future Genealogist
A mother sits
with her daughter and explains the family photo album with her. " This
in your genetecist with your surrogate mother, next to her is your sperm
donor and your father's clone. This is me holding you when you were just
a frozen embryo. The lady with the troubled look on her face is your aunt,
she's the family genealogist".
Only a genealogist
would understand.........
*Geneology is
not a hobby.....it's an obsession.
*Give me your
tired, your poor......they're genealogists!
*I've been researching
my family tree......apparently I don't exist!
*I use to have
a life.....then I started genealogy!
*My family tree
must have been used for fire wood.
*Only a genealogist
regards a step backwards as progress.
*What do you
mean my grandparents didn't have any children!?!
*Who ever said
"Seek and you shall find" was not a genealogist!
The Thirteen
Commandments for Names
1) Thou shalt
name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Abel, Richard, Thomas or
William.
2) Thou shalt
name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida,
Virginia or Mae.
3) Thou shalt
leave NO trace of your female children.
4) Thou shalt,
after naming your childen from the above lists, never refer to them by
those names again; instead, thou shalt call them by strange nicknames as:
Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey.
5) Thou shalt
not use any middle names on ANY legal documents or census reports; and
whenever possible, use only initials on legal documents.
6) Thou shalt
learn to sign all documants illegibly so that your surname can be spelled,
or misspelled in various ways: Tipper, Topper, Hopper, Tucker, Tapper.
7) Thou shalt,
after no more than three generations, make sure that all family records
are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, lost at sea or buried
so that NO future trace of them can be found.
8) Thou shalt
propagate misleading legends, rumors and vague innuendo regarding your
place of origin:
a) You may have
come from: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales ...or Iran.
b) You may have
American Indian Ancestory of the ____tribe.
c) You MAY have
descended from one of three brothers that came over from _____.
9) Thou shalt
leave no cemetery records, headstones or headstones with legible names;
nor will any of the dates thereon match those in public records.
10) Thou shalt
leave no family bible with records of birth, marriage or death.
11) Thou shalt
ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must make the rest
of thy records in the name of Albert, AJ, JA, AL, Bert, Bart or Fred.
12) Thou must
also flip thy parents names around when making reference to them, although
"Unknown" is an acceptable alternative.
13) Thou shalt
name all generations of children with the identical first names, as will
all of the brothers so that all cousins are named the same.
Back
to Genealogy
Enjoy
Some Non-Genealogy Humor
JUST
FOR FUN