YOU KNOW YOU’RE A GENEALOGIST WHEN.......
- Your kids think picnics in cemeteries are normal or that EVERYBODY
does it.
- You’re the only person in the bridge/poker club who knows what a
Soundex is.
- It is only a few miles down the road means at least 50.
- Some of your best friends live over 200 miles away.
- You have more pictures of tombstones than of the kids.
- "I need to spend just a little more time at the courthouse"
means forget the cleaning, washing, dinner, chores; the day is shot.
- The mailman can’t believe that you got this much mail from someone
you don’t even know.
- You explain to mother why you can’t go 25 miles for Sunday dinner,
but can go 100 miles to check out another cemetery.
- "As soon as I check out this census record, I’ll fix dinner"
means "call the local pizza parlor."
- Your neighbors think you are crazy, your friends wonder, and YOU
know you are.
- Despite it all, even you are a little anxious for the next family
reunion.
- You can't drive past a cemetery without wondering if your ancestors
are buried there.
- You have to watch the credits of a movie to see if any of the surnames
are ones you are researching.
- You ask all the people you meet, what their grandparents surnames
are.
- You go to the library, and instead of going to the fiction section
first, (like you used to do many moons ago) you go to the "local history"
or "genealogy" sections.
- You move to a new town and the first thing you look for is a historical
or genealogical society in the area.
- You go on vacation and check out the local genealogy stuff.
- You go on vacation and beg your hubby to please drive 80 miles out
of the way so that you can try and find your granddaddy's grave in 100
degree heat.
- Youthful fantasies of traveling to exotic places are replaced with
plans to get to those little towns with graveyards, or larger towns with
Archives!
- Your fear of snakes and bugs is overshadowed by the need to get
through those brambles to that old gravestone.
- Old friends who knew you before you were into genealogy begin sending
clippings about dead or live people with your surnames (and you know you
have been talking about genealogy too much!)
- You worry about the roof's leaking only if the drips threaten your
genealogy section.
- When you can recite all the counties of a State you've researched
but where you've never lived.
- When you find your ancestor's execution by hanging or burning at
the stake, far more interesting than the mass-murder that just took place
next door.
- You're not invited to family functions because your relatives are
tired of filling out family group sheets.
When you read the New Testament in Sunday School and find yourself
comparing the pedigrees in Matthew and Luke.
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© 1996, 1997 Jo Dunne