TAKING GENEALOGY SERIOUSLY

You are the only person to show up at the cemetery research party with a shovel.

To put the “final touches” on your genealogical research, you’ve asked all of your closest relatives to provide DNA samples.

You decided to take a two-week break from genealogy, and the U.S. Postal Office immediately laid off 1,500 employees.

Out of respect for your best friend’s unquestioned reputation for honesty and integrity, you are willing to turn off that noisy surveillance camera while she reviews your 57 genealogical research notebooks in your home. The armed security guard, however, will remain.

You plod merrily along “refining” your recently published family history, blissfully unaware that the number of errata pages now far exceeds the number of pages in your original publication.

During an ice storm and power outage, you ignore the pleas of your shivering spouse and place your last quilt around that 1886 photograph of dear Uncle George.

The most recent document in your “Missing Ancestors” file is a 36- page contract between you and Johnson Billboard Advertising Company.

Ed McMahon, several t.v. cameras and an envelope from Publishers Clearing House arrive at your front door on Super Bowl Sunday, and the first thing you say is, “Are you related to the McMahons of Ohio?”

“A Loving Family” and “Financial Security” have moved up to second and third, respectively, on your list of life’s goals, but still lag far behind “Owning My Own Microfilm Reader.”A magical genie appears and agrees to grant your any one wish, and you ask that the 1890 census be restored.

You want the day when all records everywhere will available for online research to be yesterday instead of someday…

Your fourth wife pauses long enough at your desk to hand you the final Divorce papers and without looking up you calmly type DIV in the marriage status box of your genealogy program.

You subscribe to so many genealogy mailing lists that you are still responding to messages posted 4 years ago.

You consider your dead ancestors and their relatives friends. You have more dead friends than live ones.

You were instrumental in having “non-genealogical use of the genealogy room copy machine” classified as a federal hate crime.

Your house leans slightly toward the side where your genealogical records are stored.

You spend two months salary to buy the latest scanner that allows reproduction of photo negatives and microfilm. You take it with your laptop computer to the library to duplicate a microfilm instead of using the machine there to make photocopies of the pages you want because that one is too slow and costly.

You scowl at anyone who sits in the chair in front of the microfilm reader by the extra electrical outlet.

You address everyone you meet now as “cousin.”

You are the highest bidder at a govt. auction for 16 fireproof, five drawer, legal size filing cabinets to store your paper documents only to remember that you have converted all of them to digital format and were going to recycle them. At least you can still recycle the cardboard boxes they’re stored in now.

You average 10 or more “Do you wish to stay connected?” messages from your internet service provider per online research session.

Your monthly research expenditures exceed all other items in your household budget.

You flood the mailbox of the poor unfortunate person that posts a message on “your” list that doesn’t quite fit the rules.
 
 Authur Unknown