Laugh to your heart's content and then submit
your favorite funny genealogical story, joke, etc.
 | Okay, I'll start but then I want to hear from all of you!
Back when the great state of Texas raised it's speed limit to
70 miles per hour I overheard my son tell his younger brother:
"Oh great, now mom can get to the cemetery faster."
Guess you could say they've grown up with a genealogist in the
family. (please no flames about the Great state of Texas comment
you are by-the-way at a truly Texan site) Submitted by: Dana
Thomas |
Okay, so many have responded I've had to archive some of
the older laughs you can view them at: Laugh2,
Laugh3 Keep sending them in, I love
these stories and I love to have to archive them! Check out this
great page: THE
OUTHOUSE Please use your back button to return here.
| STRANGERS IN THE BOX Come, look with
me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.
If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, or when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.
Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be passed away?
Make time to save your stories,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box. Submitted by: Olice
Davis |
| A true genealogist's request! Submitted
by BerthaElen@aol.com
wrote:
Dear Santa:
Don't bring me new dishes;
I don't need a new kind of game.
Genealogists have peculiar wishes;
For Christmas I just want a surname.
Anew washing machine would be great,
But it isn't the desire of my life.
I've just found an ancestor's birth date,
Now I need the name of his wife.
My heart doesn't yearn for a ring
That would put a real diamond to shame.
What I want is a much cheaper thing:
Please give me Mary's last name.
To see my heart singing with joy,
Don't bring me a red leather suitcase.
Bring me a genealogist's toy:
A surname, with dates and a place. |
| webmaster note: I saw this on a list that I'm on and
thought it was such a great idea that I'd put in on the Cass
County page but did not have a catagory to put it in, sorry it's
not really a laugh but it is a great idea. Please enjoy.
Subj: [STONE-L] Dear Ancestor
From: jdstone@erols.com (John D. Stone)
To: STONE-L@rootsweb.com
***** Forwarded Msg from Patti Woodard *****
I saw this on another list and just had to share it with everyone
(I
apologize if you receive this more than once since I'm sending
it to
several lists). One woman wrote back that she types this poem
on the back
of 3x5 index cards, long with her name and address, laminates
the cards and
attaches them to the stems of fake flowers (or flags?) left at
each of her
ancestors graves. She encourages anyone interested in her idea
to feel free
to do the same. I, for one, intend to do just that!
Maybe a long lost cousin will find it and contact me!
-------------
Dear Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who care
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you.
I saw this poem awhile
--Unknown **
I
saw it printed in your site ....the person said they had seen it on
another site. I posted this poem in several genealogy sites, so
evidently that's where she saw it. But, what I wanted to say,....and
couldn't see how to post there on your site...is that this poem itself
is over 100 years old. Sue found it in an old book printed back in
the late 1800's. Would like for your other readers to know how old
it is. I think this is what makes it so unique. Would you please
make a note there telling how old the poem is? Thanks......
|
| CENSUS
From: L NEEDHAM
It was the first day of census, and all through the land
each pollster was ready ... a black book in hand.
He mounted his horse for a long dusty ride,
his book and some quills were tucked close by his side.
A long winding ride down a road barely there,
toward the smell of fresh bread wafting, up through the air.
The woman was tired, with lines on her face
and wisps of brown hair she tucked back into place.
She gave him some water ... as they sat at the table
and she answered his questions ... the best she was able.
He asked her of children. Yes, she had quite a few --
the oldest was twenty, the youngest not two.
She held up a toddler with cheeks round and red;
his sister, she whispered, was napping in bed.
She noted each person who lived there with pride,
and she felt the faint stirrings of the wee one inside.
He noted the sex, the color, the age...
the marks from the quill soon filled up the page.
At the number of children, she nodded her head
and saw her lips quiver for the three that were dead.
The places of birth she "never forgot"
was it Kansas? or Utah? or Oregon ... or not?
They came from Scotland, of that she was clear,
but she wasn't quite sure just how long they'd been here.
They spoke of employment, of schooling and such,
they could read some ... and write some ... though really not
much.
When the questions were answered, his job there was done
so he mounted his horse and he rode toward the sun.
We can almost imagine his voice loud and clear,
"May God bless you all for another ten years."
Now picture a time warp ... its' now you and me
as we search for the people on our family tree.
We squint at the census and scroll down so slow
as we search for that entry from long, long ago.
Could they only imagine on that long ago day
that the entries they made would effect us this way?
If they knew would they wonder at the yearning we feel
and the searching that makes them so increasingly real.
We can hear if we listen the words they impart
through their blood in our veins and their voice in our heart.
|
| Subj: CEMETARY LOVERS
From: L NEEDHAM
These epitaphs, taken from actual tombstones, were submitted
by Angel
Friend Otto ...
_______________________________
On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova
Scotia:
Here lies
Ezekial Aikle
Age 102
The Good
Die Young.
In a London, England cemetery:
Ann Mann
Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1767
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.
Playing with names in a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery:
Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.
Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery:
Here lies the body
of Jonathan Blake
Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake.
In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery:
Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.
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.
A lawyer's epitaph in England:
Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.
Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont:
I was somebody.
Who, is no business
Of yours.
Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona
in
the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery
in
Tombstone, Arizona:
Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More.
In a Georgia cemetery:
"I told you I was sick!"
John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery:
Reader if cash thou art
In want of any
Dig 4 feet deep
And thou wilt find a Penny.
On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia:
She always said her feet were killing her
but nobody believed her.
In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England:
On the 22nd of June
- Jonathan Fiddle -
Went out of tune.
Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont has an epitaph
that
sounds like something from a Three Stooges movie:
Here lies the body of our Anna
Done to death by a banana
It wasn't the fruit that laid her low
But the skin of the thing that made her go.
More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England:
Gone away
Owin' more
Than he could pay.
Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood:
In Memory of Beza Wood
Departed this life
Nov. 2, 1837
Aged 45 yrs.
Here lies one Wood
Enclosed in wood
One Wood
Within another.
The outer wood
Is very good:
We cannot praise
The other.
On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts:
Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
He is not here, there's only the pod:
Pease shelled out and went to God.
The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost
a consumer
tip:
Who was fatally burned
March 21, 1870
by the explosion of a lamp
filled with "R.E. Danforth's
Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"
Oops! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York:
Born 1903--Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if
the car was on the way down. It was.
In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery:
Here lies an Atheist
All dressed up
And no place to go.
But does he make house calls? Dr. Fred Roberts, Brookland, Arkansas:
Office upstairs
|
| From: thedelaughters@worldnet.att.net (Harriet and Don
DeLaughter)
Note: I rec'd this and thought it rather cute as well as apt
and decided to pass it along.
Harriet DeLaughter
Genealogy Humor "I Want" By Barbara A. Brown *
Yep -- I want ancestors with names like Rudimentary Montagnard
or Melchizedick, von Steubenhoffmanns child or Spetznatz Gianfortoni,
not William Brown or John Hunter or Mary Abbott.
I want ancestors who could read and write, had their children
baptized in recognized houses of worship, went to school, purchased
land, left detailed wills (naming a huge extended family as legatees),
had their photographs taken once a year -- subsequently putting
said pictures in elaborate glass frames annotated with calligraphic
inscriptions, and carved voluble and informative inscriptions
in their headstones. I want relatives who managed to bury their
predecessors in established, still-extant (and indexed) cemeteries.
I want family members who wrote memoirs, who enlisted in the
military as officers and who served in strategically
important (and well documented) skirmishes. I want relatives
who served as councilmen, schoolteachers, county clerks and town
historians. I want relatives who 'religiously' wrote in the family
Bible, journaling every little event and
detailing the familial relationship of every visitor.
In the case of immigrant progenitors, I want them to have arrived
only in those years wherein passenger lists were
indexed by National Archives, and I want them to have applied
for citizenship, and to have done so only in those
jurisdictions which have since established indices.
I want relatives who were patriotic and clubby, who joined every
patrimonial society they could find, who kept diaries, and listed
all their addresses, who had paintings made of their horses,
and who dated every piece of paper they touched.
I want forebears who were wealthy enough to afford, and to keep
for generations, the tribal homestead, and who left all the aforementioned
pictures and diaries and journals intact in the library.
But most of all, I want relatives I can find!!!
© Barbara A. Brown * Ms. Brown's "I Want" article
was originally posted in 1994 to the National Genealogical Conference,
FIDO bulletin board forum.
© 1997, 1998 IIGS™ IIGS is a trademark of the International
Internet Genealogical Society Supervised by the IIGS™ Webmaster
Team Created and Maintained by the IIGS™ Newsletter Team
Revised: 02 August 1998
|
| MURPHY'S LAW OF GENEALOGY
The public ceremony in which your distinguished ancestor participated
and at which the platform collapsed under him turned out to be
a hanging.
When at last after much hard work you have solved the mystery
you have been working on for two years, your aunt says, "I
could have told you that".
You grandmother's maiden name that you have searched for for
four years was on a letter in a box in the attic all the time.
You never asked your father about his family when he was alive
because you weren't interested in genealogy then.
The will you need is in the safe on board the Titanic.
Copies of old newspapers have holes occurring only on the
surnames.
John, son of Thomas, the immigrant whom your relatives claim
as the family progenitor, died on board ship at age 10.
Your gr grandfather's newspaper obituary states that he died
leaving no issue of record.
The keeper of the vital records you need has just been insulted
by another genealogist.
The relative who had all the family photographs gave them
all to her daughter who has no interest in genealogy and no inclination
to share.
The only record you find for your gr grandfather is that his
property was sold at a sheriff's sale for insolvency.
The one document that would supply the missing link in your
dead-end line has been lost due to fire, flood or war.
The town clerk to whom you wrote for the information sends
you a long handwritten letter which is totally illegible.
The spelling fo your European ancestor's name bears no relationship
to its current spelling or pronounciation.
None of the pictures in your recently deceased grmother's
photo album have names written on them.
No one in your family tree ever did anything noteworthy, owned
property, was sued or was named in wills.
You learn that your great aunt's executor just sold her life's
collection of family genealogical materials to a flea market
dealer "somewhere in New York City."
Ink fades and paper deteriorates at a rate inversely proportional
to the value of the data recorded.
The 37 volume, sixteen thousand page history of your County
of origin isn't indexed.
You finally find your gr grandparent's wedding records and
discover that the brides' father was named John Smith. submitted
by: Pat M. Mahan |
|
From:
adaniel@gte.net (Asa Daniel)
A genealogy-related humorous Christmas message goes as follows:
"On the 12th day of Christmas my research gave to me:
12 Kings of England,
11 books on heraldry,
10 knights on horseback,
9 Nordic sailors,
8 closet skeletons,
7 diaries brimming,
6 wills in probate,
5 Pilgrims lines,
4 French men,
3 town clerks,
2 attic trunks,
and a patriarch upon my family tree..."
author unknown
|
| submitted by: Mfolkner@aol.com
Last Will & Testament of Flat
Broke
I, Flat Broke of the State of Poverty,
being of unsound financial status do hereby make, publish & declare
this to be my last Will & Testament to wit: Item 1 I leave
to my children namely viz: my sons, Gone Broke, Flat Broke Jr,
Been Broke & Almost Broke, all my debts, both public & private
to be shared equally. Item 2 I leave to my daughters:
Patience Broke, Never Broke, & Going Broke the knowledge that
I was always Broke & they will always be Broke. Item 3 I
leave to my beloved wife, Broken Hearted Broke, not one thing
as I am Flat Broke. Signed, Sealed, Published & Declared this
28 Day of January A.D. One Thousand nine-hundred & ninety seven
Flat Broke seal. Witness our hands & seals; Nearly Broke Positively
Broke
Recorded On The World Wide Web
28 January 1997
Author unknown
|
| From: adaniel@gte.net (Asa Daniel)
GRANDMA AND THE FAMILY TREE
There's been a change in Grandma, we've noticed her of late,
She's always reading history or jotting down some date.
She's tracking back the family, we'll all have pedigrees.
Oh, Grandma's got a hobby, she's climbing Family Trees.
Poor Grandpa does the cooking and now, or so he states,
That worst of all, he has to wash the cups and dinner plates.
Grandma can't be bothered, she's busy as a bee
Compiling genealogy - for the Family Tree.
She has no time to baby-sit, the curtains are a fright,
No buttons left on Grandad's shirt, the flower bed's a sight.
She's given up her club work, the serials on TV,
The only thing she does nowadays is climb the Family Tree.
She goes down to the courthouse and studies ancient lore,
We know more about our forebears than we ever knew before.
The books are old and dusty, they make poor Grandma sneeze,
A minor irritation when you're climbing Family Trees.
The mail is all for Grandma, it comes from near and far,
Last week she got the proof she needs to join the DAR.
A worthwhile avocation, to that we all agree,
A monumental project, to climb the Family Tree.
Now some folks came from Scotland and some from Galway Bay,
Some were French as pastry, some German, all the way.
Some went on west to stake their claim, some stayed near by the
sea,
Grandma hopes to find them all as she climbs the Family Tree.
She wanders through the graveyard in search of date or name,
The rich, the poor, the in-between, all sleeping there the same.
She pauses now and then to rest, fanned by a gentle breeze
That blows above the Fathers of all our Family Trees.
There were pioneers and patriots mixed in our kith and kin
Who blazed the paths of wilderness and fought through thick and
thin.
But none more staunch than Grandma, whose eyes light up with
glee
Each time she finds a missing branch for the Family Tree.
Their skills were wide and varied, from carpenter to cook
And one (Alas!) the record shows was hopelessly a crook.
Blacksmith, weaver, farmer, judge, some tutored for a fee,
Long lost in time, now all recorded on the Family Tree.
To some it's just a hobby, to Grandma it's much more,
She knows the joys and heartaches of those who went before.
They loved, they lost, they laughed, they wept, and now for you
and me
They live again in spirit, around the Family Tree.
At last she's nearly finished and we are each exposed.
Life will be the same again, this we all supposed!
Grandma will cook and sew, serve cookies with our tea.
We'll all be fat, just as before that wretched Family Tree.
Sad to relate, the Preacher called and visited for a spell,
We talked about the Gospel, and other things as well,
The heathen folk, the poor and then - 'twas fate, it had to be,
Somehow the conversation turned to Grandma and the Family Tree.
We tried to change the subject, we talked of everything
But then in Grandma's voice we heard that old familiar ring.
She told him all about the past and soon was plain to see
The preacher, too, was nearly snared by Grandma and the Family
Tree.
He never knew his Grandpa, his mother's name was ... Clark?
He and Grandma talked and talked, outside it grew quite dark.
We'd hoped our fears were groundless, but just like some disease,
Grandma's become an addict - she's hooked on Family Trees!
Our souls were filled with sorrow, our hearts sank with dismay,
Our ears could scarce believe the words we heard our Grandma
say,
"It sure is a lucky thing that you have come to me,
I know exactly how it's done, I'll climb your Family Tree!"
Author Unknown
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