Hartje to Harty

Appendix D

Fun Things for Genealogists and Family Historians

WARNING: GENEALOGY POX OUTBREAK

SYMPTOMS: Continual complaint as to need for names, dates and places. Patient has blank expressions, and is sometimes deaf to spouse and children. Has no taste for work of any kind, except feverishly looking through records at libraries and courthouses. Has compulsions to write letters. Swears at mailman when he does not leave mail. Frequents strange places, such as cemeteries, reunions and remote, desolate areas. Makes secret phone calls late at night. Has strange far away look in eyes.

TREATMENT: No known cure! Disease is not fatal but gets progressively worse. Patient should attend genealogy workshops, subscribe to genealogical magazines and be given a quiet corner in the house where he or she can be alone. Spouse, children and other relatives should feign interest in patients’ frequent, excited efforts to communicate results of hours of research. Leave food and drink and exit the area as quickly as possible if any degree of sanity is to be maintained by the care givers. Locate source of cheap computer paper, best scanners to be used in restoration of family photographs, and arrange for frequent trips to past homes of ancestors, thus assisting in the placating of rabid patients frantic efforts to collect, compile and print family records.

Patients may often appear to be healed and may even return to normal activities, employment and family relations, however, this disease, once contracted, will never be purged from the mind of those affected. Be prepared for frequent, unheralded remissions of this disease. Store extra blank genealogical forms, pens, pencils, loose change for copy machines, and above all, be ready to assist the patient. Tough love, psychotherapy and medications will not affect a cure for Genealogy Pox. A complete submersion of the patient in an effort to locate previously uncharted family lines is the only recommended treatment for this disease!

WARNING: If spouse, children and relatives are not careful, they too might be afflicted by this dread disease. Great care should be taken to insure that only one family member at a time is afflicted by Genealogy Pox.