MY ANCESTORS APPEAR TO HAVE LIVED AND DIED BY THE FOLLOWING RULES:

"Thou shalt choose a name not unlike 95% of the rest of the population of Wales. Where Jones is inappropriate, flip a coin between Smith or Brown".

"Where possible, marry a person with the same surname but not of your family tree. Also try thy best for a first name of John or Mary".

Rules for our ancestors -OR- How to confuse your descendants:

1. Thou shalt name your male children: James, John, Joseph, Josiah, Abel, Richard, Thomas, William.

2. Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia, May.

3. Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children.

4. Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, call them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey ...
making them difficult to trace.

5. Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you may use only initials on legal documents.

6. Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways:
Hicks, Hicks, Hix, Hixe,Hucks, Kicks.

7. Thou shalt, after no more then 3 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 propagate misleading legends, rumours, and vague innuendo regarding your place origination.
(a) you may have come from : England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales... or Iran.
(b) you may have American Indian ancestry of the ... tribe...
(c) You may have descended from one of three brothers that came over from ...

9. Thou shalt leave NO cemetery records, or headstones with legible names.

10. Thou shalt leave NO family Bible with records of birth, marriages, or deaths.

11. 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, AL, Bert, Bart, or Alfred.

12. Thou must also flip thy parent's names when making reference to them, although "Unknown" or a blank line is an acceptable alternative.

13. Thou shalt name at least 5 generations of males, and dozens of their cousins with identical names in order to totally confuse researchers.

--Author Unknown