A Genealogist’s New Year’s Eve

The following poem is offered in honor of the late Beatrix Potter, the English author who wrote, Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, The Tale of Two Bad Mice, and many other such absolutely delightful adventurers. Beatrix Potter stated, “I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”

A Genealogist’s New Year’s Eve

The year is 1852, it is New Year’s Eve.  An ancestor dips his pen into his ink bottle as he sits at his desk writing his New Year’s Resolutions, by candlelight.

My New Year Resolutions for 1853.

1.  No man is truly well-educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways and does so within the same document.  I resolve to give the appearance of being extremely well-educated during this coming year.

2.  I resolve to make certain that all of my children are named the exact same names which my ancestors have used for the past six generations.

3.  My age is my own business and that of no other person; therefore, I resolve to never list the same birth year twice on any business or religious document.

4. My children shall all be baptized in a different church, parish or perhaps even in a different faith. Every third child shall not be baptized at all or shall perhaps be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records at all.

5.  I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or to a new state, at least once every ten years just a month or so before those pesky enumerators come around asking their silly questions.

6.  I will make every effort to reside in only counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years or so.

7.  I resolve to join an obscure religious cult which does not believe in record keeping nor in participating in military service.

8.  When the tax collector comes to my door, I shall lend him my own pen which I have carefully dipped into my own special rapidly fading blue ink.

9.  I resolve that if my beloved wife, Mary, should die, I will marry another lady with the same given name [Mary] in order to ensure that I never error in speaking her name.
10. I resolve not to make a will.  Who needs to spend money on a lawyer?