I know we don't post too many "funny" items on the List, but this one is so
appropriate to our genealogy studies that I couldn't resist:
THE THIRTEEN COMMANDMENTS FOR NAMES:
(1) Thou shalt only name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Jonathan,
Richard, Thomas or William
(2) Thou shalt only name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha,
Sarah
or Virginia
(3) Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children.
(4) Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, call them
by
strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey.---making them
as
difficult to trace as possible.
(5) Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census
reports, and use only initials on all legal documents.
(6) Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname
can
be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hicks, Hix, Hixe,
Hucks,
Kicks
(7) Thou shalt, after no more than 3 generations, make sure that all family
records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, or buried so
that
NO future trace of them can be found.
(8) Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendo
regarding your place origination.
(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 three brothers that came over on a
ship from______
(9) Thou shalt leave NO cemetery records, or headstones with legible names.
(10) Thou shalt leave NO family Bible with records of birth, marriages, or
deaths.
(11) Thou shalt ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must
make all the rest of thy records in the names of Albert, AJ, JA, AL,
Bert,
Bart, or Alfred.
(12) Thou must also flip thy parent's names when making reference to them,
although "Unknown" or a blank is an acceptable alternative.
(13) Thou shalt name at least 5 succeeding generations of males, and dozens
of their cousins with identical names in order to totally confuse
researchers.
AMEN!