Many of you may have heard this one before.  In fact, there is a country song based on it.  Or maybe it is the song -- I couldn't say.

-- Moe Jaffe and Dwight Latham

Anyone want to chart that family tree?

Symptoms:

Continual complaint as to need for names, dates and places.
Patient has blank expression, is sometimes deaf to spouse and children.
Has no taste for work of any kind except feverishly looking through records at libraries and courthouses. Has compulsion to write letters.
Swears at mailman when he doesn't leave mail.
Frequents strange places such as cemeteries, ruins and remote, desolate areas.
Makes secret phone calls at night, hides phone bill from spouse and mumbles to self.
Has strange, faraway look in the eye.

No Known Cure!! Treatment:

Medication is useless.
Disease is not fatal but gets progressivley worse.
Patient should attend genealogy workshops, subscribe to genealogical magazines and be given a quiet corner in the house where he or she can be alone.

A very modern mother is explaining to her little girl about pictures in the family photo album.

"This is the geneticist with your surrogate mother and here's your father's clone."

"This is me holding you when you were just a frozen embryo."

"The lady with the very troubled look on her face is your aunt, a genealogist."

Be Cautious of What You Find!:

From The Greensborough Patriot (a weekly published newspaper) issue of 17 March 1830:

Whereas my wife THANKFUL (or more properly speaking THANKLESS) manifests no disposition to act the part of an obedient companion, but continues to run me in debt beyond my ability to pay. This is therefore to inform all whom it may concern that I have resolved to be hen-pecked no longer and that I am determined to pay no more debts of her contracting. Now reap the benefits of your doing!

Guilford, March 7, 1930 signed: ROBERT ARMFIELD

Web Master: So... Was this 1830 or 1930? Where was the typo?

1. Your elusive ancestor has been spotted in more different places than Elvis!
2. More than 1/2 of your book collection is made up of marriage records or pedigrees.
3. The only film you've seen in the last year was the 1880 census index.
4. The local genealogy society borrows books from you.
5. You've not only read the latest GEDCOM standard, but you also understand it.
6. You've taken a tape recorder and/or notebook to a family reunion.
7. You have more photographs of dead people than living ones.
8. You can recite your lineage back eight generations, but can't remember your nephew's name.
9. You've never met any of the people you send e-mail to, even though you're related.
10. You introduce your daughter as your descendent.

"Why waste your money looking up your family tree?
Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you!"

-- Mark Twain

"I didn't really want to get into genealogy!  I just kept putting it off!
Then, when I finally started, within six weeks, I had my father narrowed down to one of three or four people!"

-- unknown

"Adam and Eve must have found genealogy very boring."

-- unknown

A good ancestor keeps certificates including birth and death certificates; records including health, military, naturalization, and school; passports; newspaper and church notices; awards; photos; art and craft work; journals; Bibles; diaries; baby, school and wedding books; heirlooms.

He or she dates correspondence, cares for tombstones, keeps research organized, writes or tapes the family stories, and supports family organizations.

A good ancestor dates everything, is sure that full names are included, records where material may be found and always sees that at least one other copy of important data is somewhere else.

A hundred years from now, will they think you were a good ancestor?

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery:

Anna Wallace

The children of Israel wanted bread
And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,
And the Devil sent him Anna.

A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery:

Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803

His comely young widow, aged 23, has
many qualifications of a good wife, and
yearns to be comforted.

Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont:

I was somebody.
Who, is no business
Of yours.

In a cemetery in Georgia:

"I told you I was sick!"

In a cemetery in England:

Remember man, as you walk by,
As you are now, so once was I,
As I am now, so shall you be,
Remember this and follow me.

To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone:

To follow you I'll not consent,
Until I know which way you went.

My daughter never married but she's lived with Joe, so long,
And they and the kids are so happy that somehow, it doesn't seem wrong.

My son, he was legally married but his wife kept her own name.
We don't know the name of our grand-kids but, we love everyone, just the same.

But, my sister, she really got married, she 'tied the knot' all seven times.
Her family could pass for a railroad with the crossing of so many lines!

My brother, well, he was adopted, but he found his natural kin,
And our family tree is just 'blooming' like a wild and monstrous thing.

I try to keep things in order, every one, a place of their own,
But what shall I do about Father -- He says,"He's really a clone!"

-- E.H. Waldram

The keeper of the vital records you need will have just been insulted by another genealogist.

Your great-grandfather's obituary states that he died, leaving no issue of record.

The town clerk you wrote to in desperation, and finally convinced to give you the information you need, can't write legibly, and doesn't have a copying machine.

That ancient photograph of four relatives, one of whom is your progenitor, carries the names of the other three.

Copies of old newspapers have holes which occur only on maiden and surnames.

No one in your family tree ever did anything noteworthy, always rented property, was never sued, and was never named in wills.

You learned that Great Aunt Matilda's executor just sold her life's collection of family genealogical materials to a flea market dealer "somewhere in New York City."

Yours is the ONLY last name not found among the billions in the LDS archives in Salt Lake City.

Anything that could have burned, did.

The census taker with the clear handwriting and good ink never enumerated your ancestors.

If you find a well-documented, illustrious ancestor, you've probably made a mistake.

Your folks hated government and never filled out forms.

The book you need is never indexed, or, if indexed, doesn't include people.

Your families never had attics, much less Bibles or boxes full of photos.

All real library "finds" are made five minutes before closing, when the copier is broken.

The correctly shelved books and correctly filed forms are never the ones you need.

The person sitting next to you at the research center is finding ancestors every five minutes... and telling you so.

The e-mail address that bounces is the one from a person who listed your exact names.  If you find a working address, you aren't related.

Your cemeteries have no caretaker or records archive.

Alternate spellings and arcane names were your folks' favorite pass times.

Your ancestors only knew three names, and used them over and over in every collateral line.

Your sister neglects to mention that the date she gave you, which you have researched, and sent to other researchers, was just a guess with no foundation, and she guessed because she "didn't like leaving that line blank."

Your mother neglects to mention that, "Oh, yes, we knew they changed their name."

The critical link in your family tree is named "Smith."

The document containing evidence of the missing link in your research invariably will be lost due to fire, flood or war.

The will you need is in the safe on board the "Titanic."

The spelling of your European ancestor's name bears no relationship to its current spelling or pronunciation.

The 37 volume, sixteen-thousand-page history of your county of origin isn't indexed.

The blot on the page of the census covers your grandmother's birth-date!

Your ancestor's will leaves his estate to his beloved wife and children but he doesn't name them.

The only overturned, face-down gravestone in the cemetery is your great-great grandfather's!

The information you desperately need could be only found in an 1890 census?

You finally find your ancestor's obituary in an old newspaper and all it says is "Died last week."

You finally get a day off from work to travel to a courthouse -- and when you get there it's closed for emergency plumbing repairs.

Whoever said “Seek and ye shall find” was not a genealogist.

Some family trees have beautiful leaves, and some are just a bunch of nuts.  Remember, it is the nuts that make the tree worth shaking.

Did some of those jog your memory?  Have they happened to you?

My ancestors must be in a Witness Protection Plan.

Shake your family tree and watch the nuts fall out!

How can ONE ancestor cause so much trouble?

I looked into my family tree and found out I was a sap.

That's strange: half my ancestors are WOMEN!

Blessed are the Elderly for they remember what we never knew.

If only people came with pull down menus and online help.

Isn't Genealogy Fun? The answer to one problem leads to two more.

A family tree can wither if no one tends to it's Roots.

After 30 days, unclaimed ancestors will be adopted.

Genealogists are Time Unravelers.

Genealogy - tracing yourself back to better people.

A Pack Rat is hard to live with, but makes a Fine Ancestor.

I should have asked them before they died.

I am always late - my ancestors arrived on the JuneFlower.

Only a Genealogist regards a step backwards as Progress.

It is an unusual family that hath neither a Lady of the Evening nor a Thief.

Many a Family Tree needs pruning.

It's hard to believe that someday I'll be an ancestor.

SHH!! Be very, very quiet, I'm hunting forebears.

Genealogists live life in the Past Lane.

Cousins marrying cousins : Very Tangled Roots.

Documentation - the hardest part of genealogy.

Genealogy - Chasing your own tale!

I searched my family tree and apparently I don't exist.

Genealogy is not fatal - but it is a grave disease.

Old Genealogists never die - they just lose their census.

SOOOOO Many Ancestors - So little time!

When I go to the other side and meet my ancestors, I am going to ask them, "Now just where did you go after the 1880 census?"

- - Various Sources

A computer is a typewriter with an attitude.

Press any key...  No, no, no... NOT THAT ONE!

Press any key to continue...   or any other key to quit.

You wake up at 3 am to go to the bathroom and stop to check your email on the way back to bed.

You name your first two children "Eudora" and "Dotcom." [Web Master thinks very few of you will recognize "Eudora."]

You turn off your modem and get this awful empty feeling, as if you'd just pulled the plug on a loved one.

You spend half of the plane trip with your laptop on your lap and your child in the overhead compartment.

You decide to stay in college for an additional year or two, just for the free Internet access.

You find yourself typing "com" after every period when using a word processor.com

You check your mail.  It says "no new messages"; so you check it again.

You don't know what gender three of your closest friends are, because they have neutral screen names and you never bothered to ask.

A researcher discovered a great-great uncle, whom we shall call Remus, who was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889.  The only known photograph of Remus showed him standing on the gallows.  On the back of the picture was this inscription: "Horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted, and hanged in 1889."

The researcher e-mailed a relative, who happened to be a Congressman, asking for information about their great-great uncle.  The Congressman's staff sent back the following biographical sketch.

"Uncle Remus was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory.  His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets, and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad.  Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad.  In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function, held in his honor, when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed."

- - Author Unknown

Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Richard, Thomas, or William.

Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Sarah, Virginia, or Mae.

Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children.

Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, never refer to them by those names again; instead, thou shalt call them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Polly, Dolly, or Sukey.

Thou shalt not use any middle names on ANY legal documents or census reports; and whenever possible, use only initials on legal documents.

Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled in various ways: Tipper, Topper, Hopper, Tucker, Tapper.

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.

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 ancestry of the ____tribe.
c. You MAY have descended from one of the three brothers that came from ____.

Thou shalt leave no cemetery records, headstones, or headstones with legible names; nor will any of the dates thereon match those in public records.

Thou shalt leave no family bible with records of birth, marriage, or death.

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.

Thou must also flip thy parents names around when making reference to them, although "Unknown" is an acceptable alternative.

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.

Kinsman (original poem by Wayne Hand, 1999)

Alas, my elusive kinsman
You've led me quite a chase.
I thought I'd found your courthouse
But the Yankees burned the place.

You always kept your bags packed
Although you had no fame, and
Just for the fun of it
Twice you changed your name.

You never owed any man, or
At least I found no bills.
In spite of eleven offspring
You never left a will.

They say our name's from Europe.
Came state side on a ship.
Either lost the passenger list.
Or granddad gave them the slip.

I'm the only one looking.
Another searcher I can't find.
I pray (maybe that's his fathers name)
As I go out of my mind.

They said you had a headstone
In a shady plot.
I've been there twenty times, and
Can't even find the lot.

You never wrote a letter.
Your Bible we can't find.
Its probably in some attic.
Out of sight and out of mind.

You first married a ........Smith.
And just to set the tone
The other four were Sarahs.
And everyone a Jones.

You cost me two fortunes
One of which I did not have.
My wife, my house and Fido.
God, how I miss that yellow lab.

But somewhere you slipped up,
Ole Boy, somewhere you left a track.
And if I don't find you this year
Well.......Next year, I'll be back!

Of course, there is only one YOU, and everyone knows that they have many, many ancestors, but did you realize you have:

Generation 21 would be well over one million ancestors.  And you want to know if I am finished with your family tree?

Now, considering that it took the efforts of all those people (and many more) to end up with only YOU, how can we have a population problem?

Step by step instructions: