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!
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