I know these have been around for a while, but they are still funny: Murphy's Laws of Family History The keeper of the vital records you need will just have been insulted by another genealogist. Your great-grandfather's obituary states that he died, leaving no issue of record. The town clerk you wrote to in desperation, and finally convinced to give you the information you need, can't write legibly, and doesn't have a copying machine. That ancient photograph of four relatives, one of whom is your progenitor, carries the names of the other three. Copies of old newspapers have holes which occur only on maiden names. No one in your family tree ever did anything noteworthy, always rented property, was never sued, and was never named in wills. You learned that Great aunt Matilda's executor just sold her life's collection of family genealogical materials to a flea market dealer "somewhere in New York City." Yours is the ONLY last name not found among the three billion in the world famous Mormon archives in Salt Lake City. Ink fades and paper deteriorates at a rate inversely proportional to the value of the data recorded. The critical link in your family tree is named "Smith." --Rick "Putting flesh on the bones of history" ==== GenHumor Mailing List ==== !^NavFont02F041D0006NGHHKf4F77 Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*