News Flash 1852 - It's New Year's Eve and Henry Hydenwell sits at his desk by candlelight. He dips his quill pen in ink and begins to write his New Year's resolutions.
1. No man is truly well educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways within the same document. I resolve to give the impression of being extremely well educated in the coming year.
2. I resolve to see to it that my children will have the same names that my ancestors have used for six generations in a row.
3. My age is no one's business but my own. I hereby resolve to never list the same age or birth year twice in any document or census.
4. I resolve to have each of my children baptized in a different church, either in a different faith or in a different parish. Every third child will not be baptized at all, or will be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records.
5. I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or new province at least every ten years, just before those pesky enumerators come around asking silly questions.
6. I will make every attempt to reside in counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years.
7. I resolve to join an obscure religious cult that does not believe in record keeping or participating in military service.
8. When the tax collector comes to my door, I'll loan him my pen which has been dipped in rapidly fading blue ink.
9. I resolve that should my beloved Mary die, I will marry another Mary.
10. I resolve not to make a will. Who needs to spend money on a lawyer?
Courtesy of the Cumberland County Genealogical Society, Nova Scotia.
Note: I know I have people in my database who have abided by these resolutions!
A tough old cowboy from South Texas counseled his granddaughter that if she wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gun powder on her oatmeal every morning. The granddaughter did this religiously to the age of 103 when she died. She left behind 14 children, 30 grandchildren, 45 great-grandchildren, 25 great-great-grandchildren, and a 15-foot hole where the crematorium used to be.
A little girl asked her mother, "How did the human race start?"
The mother answered, "God made Adam and Eve and they had children, and so all mankind was made."
Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, "Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved."
The confused girl returned to her mother and said, "Mum, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?"
The mother answered, "Well dear, it’s very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his."
