The Lighter Side of Genealogy

 

    Genealogy is a great hobby. The discovery of a long lost ancestor thrills you to no end. Learning the stories and struggles of your grandparents and great grandparents is an exciting occurrence in a family historian’s day. Serious researchers require facts and documents before proclaiming a person is actually one of their ancestors. They are detail oriented, serious about their work, and many times their tunnel vision does not allow themselves to enjoy what they are doing. One thing that genealogy and genealogists aren’t is they are not prone to being uproariously funny. 

     Other hobbies have components that can make you chuckle. Any casual, recreational sport that people participate in has lighter moments where all of the players are joking around with each other and sometimes laughing out loud. We play water volleyball up to three times a week and always have a good time. Photographers and artists are always creating funny prints and writers will pen amusing stories for all to laugh at. 

     Some activities spawn a lot of jokes. Golf comes to mind. I haven’t played golf in about 30 years but I always enjoy a good golf joke. One of my favorites is this. Two men were playing golf on a Sunday morning. Bill was about to tee off when he noticed that a funeral was driving by on the street near the tee. He stopped, took off his hat, and quietly watched as the procession passed. After they were gone Fred remarked to Bill, “I think it was wonderful that you stopped and paid your respects as the funeral drove by.” Bill answered, “It was all I could do. After all, we would have been married for 45 years tomorrow.” 

     I’ve only heard one good genealogy joke. It goes like this; “I caught a frog in my backyard and decided to get his DNA tested. The test came back and showed he is 70% French, 20% Scottish, 5% Italian. 4% German and a tad Pole”.I don’t know if there are any more, but there are some sayings and memes that show that we aren’t all stuffy record keepers. My cousin Dan spoke to our club here in Ocala via Zoom. He did not charge a fee so we bought him a gift. It was a coffee mug with “Eventually, every genealogist comes to his census” printed on it. A couple of weeks later he posted a picture of himself on Facebook holding a mug that said “I seek dead people.” Cute!!

     I do have other interests besides genealogy. I am an avid cyclist and have taken advantage of the warmer Florida winters to ride all year long. I enjoy fantasy football, and the Philadelphia Eagles in the reality football world. I am a huge Pitt basketball fan and follow the football team as well. I am also a big fan of all of the Star Wars movies and TV series. That is why these two little cartoons really tickle me.

     I belong to several genealogy Facebook groups. One of them is the Ancestry.com users group. Most of the posts have to do with how to use Ancestry or somebody wants to try to decipher the handwriting on an old document. There is the occasional typo that causes a chuckle or two among members of the group. One person posted a DNA question about Scottish “jeans” obviously using the wrong word for the component of life. Somebody commented that they didn’t know the answer to the question but thought you could get Scottish jeans at Walmart. 

     Of course there are a lot of ironically funny things. I was researching one family tree and noticed a set of twin women. One of them died and within a year the twin had divorced her husband and married her twin’s husband. My grandmother lived on Henry street in NYC in 1910. I flipped the page on the report to see if my grandfather lived near her( They didn’t get married until 1914.) I didn't find him but in the next building was the family of Simon Muckler, my grandfather’s uncle and the man I am named after. 

     A funny thing that happened to me involves my brother in law, Frank and one of his cousins who has a fairly large family tree on Ancestry. His cousin contacted me from My Heritage.com because he was a close match to Frank. I manage Frank’s DNA on that site. I gave him Frank’s contact info and gave him access to my tree so he could fill out his own tree with our side of Frank’s family. I looked to see if he had any progress filling out his tree and noticed he had added pictures to peoples’ profiles that I had never attached pictures to. One of those people was my Aunt Ruth. He did not have any pictures of Ruth so he found her on Facebook and copied her profile picture from there. What he didn't know was that we set up Ruth’s Facebook account, we used a picture of Jane Hathaway from The Beverly Hillbillies as a joke. When I told him about it he laughed and said “I thought she looked familiar.” 

    I like a good pun. Corny jokes, Dad jokes, groaners. I love them all. I will leave you with this one with a genealogy theme. 

     25 years ago, I worked with a guy named Kee Smith (last name changed here... this is really a real story). Kee was sort of a crunchy granola type of European ancestry. Eventually, he told the story about his unusual name. He said he was born on a reservation, and he was placed in a bassinet early on, his chart on his bassinet bore the label "Boy Smith". Amused, his parents asked what the word for "Boy" was in the tribe's language, and it turns out this was "Kee". And so, he was named in homage to his place of birth. Skip forward to a few days ago, and I remembered this story and it suddenly dawned on me. I **needed** to know: what tribe was living on this reservation? In which language was this name? I sent out a few emails to addresses I last knew Kee to use. It took a while, but he eventually answered. He said he was born on a Navajo reservation, and his given name is not uncommon in that tribe. Well, I was disappointed, as I realized that my search must continue for a Sioux named "Boy". 

 Remember to laugh every day.