FINALLY: HOW TO FIND YOUR ANCESTORS!!!
(By Bettyanne Bruin)
If lately, you've been noticing that you have more time on your hands, you might be thinking now is the time to do your genealogy. For beginners, here are a few suggestions on how to find your ancestors:
1. For a period of about thirty years, off and on throughout these years, try, with minmal effort, to somehow locate or happen to come across a LDS pedigree chart, to record what, if any, records you do have. After trying, off and on, to locate this page, give up and do something that will actually be worth more than searching for a piece of paper with increasing blank lines begging you to record information you might spend the rest of your life searching for only to find the information no longer exists.
2. Ten years later, after accidentally catching sight of a yellowed, dog-earred, soiled, wrinkled and blank pedigree chart in the bottom of the drawer of a desk that is being placed into the back of a Deseret Industries truck, proudly place the chart in a prominent place on your kitchen counter for at least five more years.
3. One day, after watching paint dry for more than three hours,
then playing with the dust in your belly button for five more, unable to think of absolutely anything more in the universe to do within the entire expanse of your exsistence, the image of your nearly disgarded pedigree chart will come to mind. With the full spirit of Elijah suddenly beginning to surge with a Super-hero zest throughout your heart, body and mind, retrieve the chart from off the kitchen counter. Pull it apart from the child’s artwork that has become glued to it with three year's worth of maple syrup and begin listing your and your parent’s full names, plus each person’s date and place of birth. With a feeling you might be on a roll that could lead you, by the end of the day, to a genealogical place just outside the Garden of Eden, move back one more generation, to your maternal and paternal grandparents. Fill in their names, then go to their dates and places of birth. Clueless regarding any of this information, right before caving into feeling the overwhelming feeling that you are a shameless, idiotic excuse for a human being, give up on all of this particular angle of nonsense, toss the pedigree chart back on the kitchen counter and go back to the wall you were first staring at and stare at it some more.
5. After ten more years of genealogical negligence, right before one of your friend’s relative passes away, this relative will have a very profound visitation from the other side, wherein specified visitor will thank relative for all of the genealogy particular relative did for eonic generations of loved ones who have now all passed on and are awaiting their eternal glory in everlasting peace and give friend all the credit, telling him mansions galore are awaiting friend's arrival. After hearing this experience, you will feel so guilty about all of the genealogical abuse you have inflicted upon your loved ones as you picture them floating aimlessly in eternal oblivion, that you will begin to panic. This panic will not leave you alone, day or night, and you will begin to suffer from anxiety attacks. After seeking professional help, six weeks later, when your medication finally takes full effect, dig desperately through the deep pile on your kitchen sink. Unable to find the chart, grill every member of your family, making sure to accuse them of every kind of whoredoms in an effort to get your chart back.
6. Failing in the above step, now lay back on your bed and stare out the sliding glass doors of your bedroom. Eventually you will see something white jammed up against the fence. Making your way across the yard, with a prayer in your heart, you will hope it is your pedigree chart, but to no avail. What it is, is an old bill you have neglected to pay for so long that it has now turned into a civil judgment against you.
7. Unable to take it anymore, vow to never to seek out your ancestors unless they come to you personally.
8. Unable to live with this decision, get out your yellow pages phone book and call a professional genealogist to find out how much it will cost you to find your relatives. Unable to afford any of these prices, you will resign yourself to pass on this idea.
9. But, do not give up.
10. The next day, as you celebrate your eightieth birthday, sit peacefully in your rocker, telling your grandchildren all of the stories about the wonderfulness of family, and encourage them to do whatever it takes to seek out their ancestors.
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