Week 33: Comedy #52Ancestors
This week’s prompt has me completely stumped.
Comedy?
These days I have to continually remind myself how much better we have it now than our ancestors did.
Sometimes, genealogy is worth a giggle or two. Like the time when I helped a friend research her Scottish ancestor and the poor guy (or someone with a similar name) kept getting fined for letting his pigs escape from their pen. It might not have been funny for him, but we laughed until our sides ached.
Most of the time, I usually just smh.*[1] I know that I’ve complained before about the obvious errors that find their way into people’s trees, usually due to the “name’s-the-same” syndrome (“What do you mean the John Smith who fought in the Revolution isn’t the John Smith who fought in the Spanish-American War?”).
One thing causes me to chuckle these days are people who clutch their pearls about how society is going to “hell in a handbasket,” but they don’t know that their great-grandmother was born four months after her parents wedding (or maybe they are like me where my great-grandparents married when my grandmother was nine). If you think morals today are declining, I can guarantee you don’t know your family’s history.
Speaking of hypocrisy, I am a Twitter-follower of Jennifer Mendelsohn, the creator of “Resistance Genealogy.”[2] Jennifer is a journalist who spent many years researching her own family until the recent wave of anti-immigrant sentiment.[3] In between caring for her family and working for a living, Jennifer exposes the family immigration history for some of our country’s loudest racists. What I love about Jennifer is her passion for the truth: as she says “In genealogy, we always have the receipts.”[4] While she’s also funny, if you ask her about why the people at Ellis Island changed your ancestor’s name, she might (figuratively) slap you up-side your head.[5]
One guy a lot of us in Kansas really “dislike” is Kris Kobach.[6] He got infamous by spending most of his time as Secretary of State running around the country pitching his anti-immigration consulting services. Back home in Kansas, Kobach’s claim to fame was helping Kansas institute super-restrictive voting regulations. The court struck down this law as unconstitutional and held Kobach in contempt of court for violating some basic courtroom rules.[7]Naturally, the Kobach family tree is exclusively made up of immigrants, including his German-immigrant great-grandfather who was arrested for burglary and shop-lifting at least three times.[8]
I know this blog was supposed to be about “comedy,” but these days, I can’t find much to laugh at.
Missing the great Maya Angelou who said: “We need to haunt the house of history and listen anew to the ancestors’ wisdom.”
[1]Shaking my head.
[2]Follow Jennifer on Twitter @CleverTitleTK. I also follow @megansmolenyak
[3]Monic Hesse, “She saw anti-immigration politicians as hypocrites. So she launched ‘resistance genealogy,’” The Washington Post, 13 March 2018 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/she-saw-anti-immigration-politicians-as-hypocrites-so-she-launched-resistance-genealogy/2018/03/12/1926b528-1d77-11e8-b2d9-08e748f892c0_story.html).
[4]Resistance Genealogy website (http://resistancegenealogy.com).
[5]But of course, you would never ask such a silly question, as that NEVER HAPPENED.
[6]“Dislike” is as explicit as I can be on this family-friendly blog.
[7]Opinion, “Kris Kobach is the G.O.P. at Its Worst,” The New York Times, 8 August 2018 (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/08/opinion/editorials/kris-kobach-kansas-gop-primary.html)
[8]rickebg, “Kris Kobach: Anti-Immigrant Crusader,” #Resistance Genealogy, 21 March 2018 (https://resistancegenealogy.wordpress.com).
No genealogy-related picture this week, but a funny one of the cat our son adopted. #ClearTheShelters