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Monday, December 23, 2013

MY FESTIVUS AIRING OF GENEALOGICAL GRIEVANCES

Today is the holiday of Festivus, and in keeping with the tradition I have
some genealogical grievances I want to air:

If my various ancestors were going to have the same names for 4 or 5 generations,
they could have at least added some descriptive phrase to each name, like "John
Ames the Short" or "Jonathan Barker the Strong" to help us later generations sort
them out  more easily?

But on the other hand, I've got three Scottish ancestors who have those phrases and
they're  driving me crazy. Why was David Forbes called "David With the Black Lip"
Forbes? Didn't he wipe his mouth after eating?  Why was one David Forbes called
"Evil David Forbes"? And was another David Forbes called "David Trail the Axe"
Forbes? Was he too weak to carry it, or was this some Scottish euphemism for
a particular physical attribute ?

When my colonial ancestors were dictating their wills they could have at least
made sure that the person writing it down for them had neat handwriting!

And why hasn't Genea-Santa sent me a clue yet to help break down that John
Cutter West Brick wall???

Finally, what is the problem with politicians who cannot understand that most
identity fraud is not caused by the SSDI?


Sigh. There. I feel much better.

How about you? Do you have a genealogy grievance to air for Festivus?

2 comments:

M. Diane Rogers said...

Mine would be similar to yours, Bill, although my Scots didn't use those wonderfully descriptive, but mostly unintelligible to us, nsmes. My big grievance is with Mary Ann White, I think. "Dear ggrandma, I love that you must have insisted on adding ggrandpa's place of birth to his death certificate (not just 'England', but Bristol) but why, oh why, didn't you leave me a good solid clue about your own? Or, is this a test? If so, ggrandma, I am still working on it, honest!"

Karen Packard Rhodes said...

I'm with you on the SSDI. What crook is going to PAY what they charge when one good dumpster-dive will get them LOADS more? Gads, some people are stupid, and then there's Congress.

My chief geealogical grievance, though, is that the lovely records and the diaries and all invariably turn up to belong to other people's Packards, Reeds, Reynoldses, McKees, etc. -- not mine!