10/14/2024
Originally published by the Ellen Payne Odom Library years ago.
Some Commandments of Our Ancestors
1. Thou shalt name thy male children: James, John, Joseph, Josiah, Abel, Richard, Thomas, William.
2. Thou shalt name thy female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia, May.
3. Thou shalt leave NO trace of thy female children.
4. Thou shalt, after naming thy children from the above lists, call them by strange nicknames such as Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey, Molly—making them difficult to trace.
5. Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, thou may use only initials on legal documents.
6. Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that thy surname may be spelled or misspelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hics, Hix, Hixe, Hucks, Kicks.
7. Thou shalt, after no more than three generations, make sure that all family records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, or buried so that NO future trace of them can be found.
8. Thou shalt ALWAYS flip thy name around. If born James Albert, thou must make all the rest of thy records in the names of Albert, AJ, JA, Bert, Bart, or Alfred.
9. Thou shalt name at least five generations of males and dozens of their cousins with identical names in order to totally confuse researchers.
10. Thou shalt leave NO family Bible with records of births, marriages, or deaths.
