I’m not certain of the origin of this joke, but I’m paraphrasing it here. I’m fairly certain this joke first crossed my path at least ten years ago…
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A widow had “discovered” genealogy and found it a great way to occupy some of her spare time in her retirement. She spent some money, but was judicious in what she spent and was not in any danger of frittering away her retirement. In fact, she stayed well within her genealogy budget.
Her son, thinking that his mother was spending too much time “looking for dead people,” constantly berated her for it and criticized her for spending too much money.
She finally told him that since her genealogy work bothered him so much, she had decided to develop a new past time that might cost less. The local tavern had a weekly “ladies’ night” and she was hopeful that she’d meet a man there would could be her son’s stepfather.
He never complained about genealogy again.
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One response
My family thought the same thing too. It stopped when their daughter had an assignment to write about her family tree. She asked me for information about the family trees I had done, (smart girl)) and we spent several interesting hours in this project. I even provided her with some old pictures of her ancestors. SHe got a super grade on her effort to the delight of her parents and I Enjoyed our time together. WHen we organized two family reunions, I was asked to display my records as many of the younger generations had no idea of where our families came from and when. It was well received and as a result, a few of them are now doing their own trees.