Rules For Our Ancestors (1) Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Josiah, Abel, Daniel, Richard, Thomas and William. (2) Thou shalt name your female children: Betty, Elizabeth , Mary, Jane, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida , Virginia , Ginny, Jenny and May. It is always good to name them Martha Elizabeth and refer to them in all documents as Jenny Mae. (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, Billy Bob or Zeke, ---making them difficult to trace. (5) Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you may use only initials on legal documents. Also be certain to use different dates on successive census as well as changing the country of origin. (6)Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hics, Hix, Hixes, Hucks, or Kicks, and whether you can write or not, use an X whenever possible. (7) Thou shalt, after no more then 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. Also if they are found be sure they have been thoroughly water-soaked, torn and have large pieces missing. (8) Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendos regarding your place of 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 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, but always have cousins or aunts who have seen it. (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, Alfred, Bert, Bart, or Jimmy L. (12) Thou must also flip thy parent's names when making reference to them, although "Unknown" or a blank line is an acceptable alternative. (13) Thou shalt name at least 5 generations of males, and dozens of their cousins with identical names in order to totally confuse researchers. (14) Last but not least, embellish all stories and enter dates, which indicate that all children are born to twelve year old girls fathered by eighty-year-old husbands.