I, Monifa A. Marrero, do hereby confess that I am
ADDICTED TO GENEALOGY!

	When you are in a different city do you look through the phone book to find people that have the same surname as one of your ancestors?
	Do you get excited when you drive by a Cemetery?
	Do you talk about your deceased ancestors as though they were still alive?
	Does your librarian or the person that works at the archives know your whole life story?
	Do you read the obituaries section of every newspaper you can get your hands on - every day?
	Does your spouse call the library to see when you are coming home?
	Do you spend your vacation tracking down ancestors in county courthouses?
	Do you keep pictures of tombstones or long deceased ancestors in your wallet?
	Can you remember the date an ancestor died but you can't remember to feed the pets (and occasionally forget to feed your kids)?
	Instead of an emergency kit in your car you have a research kit?
	Does your boss call the library or archives to see when you will be coming back from your lunch break?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you are
definitely addicted to genealogy! Here are some more symptoms of your illness:

• In order to put the "final touches" on your genealogical research, you've asked all of your closest relatives to provide DNA samples.
• You are the only person to show up at the cemetery research party with a shovel.
• You were instrumental in having "non-genealogical use of the genealogy room copy machine" classified as a federal hate crime.
• Your house leans slightly toward the side where your genealogical records are stored.
• You decided to take a two-week break from genealogy, and the U.S. Postal Office immediately laid off 1,500 employees.
• Out of respect for your best friend's unquestioned reputation for honesty and integrity, you are willing to turn off that noisy surveillance camera while she reviews your 57 genealogical research notebooks in your home. The armed security guard, however, will remain.
• You plod merrily along "refining" your recently published family history, blissfully unaware that the number of errata pages now far exceeds the number of pages in your original publication.
• During an ice storm and power outage, you ignore the pleas of your shivering spouse and place your last quilt around that 1886 photograph of dear Uncle George.
• The most recent document in your "Missing Ancestors" file is a 36-page contract between you and Johnson Billboard Advertising Company.
• Ed McMahon, several t.v. cameras and an envelope from Publishers Clearing House arrive at your front door on Super Bowl Sunday, and the first thing you say is, "Are you related to the McMahons of Ohio?".
• "A Loving Family" and "Financial Security" have moved up to second and third, respectively, on your list of life's goals, but still lag far behind "Owning My Own Microfilm Reader."
• A magical genie appears and agrees to grant your any one wish, and you ask that the 1890 census be restored.

You know you're a genealogy addict when...

• Your family members ask you what you'd like for a wedding, birthday, anniversary or graduation present and you tell each of them: "an annual subscription to Ancestry.com, or Genealogy.com." - and you end up with paid subscriptions for the next 20 years to each site.
• You can answer genealogy research questions that your librarian/family center volunteer cannot.
• Your idea of a fun vacation includes a library, courthouse and a couple of cemeteries.
• Your dream vacation is to spend a week at the LDS Library, in Salt Lake City.
• You can answer all of the queries on every genealogy forum about your Surname.
• You receive 100 e-mails a day and 99 of them are from Roots-L mailing lists.
• You have your own set of keys to the local family history center or library and the employees think you work there.
• There's not one person on your Christmas card list that you have actually met, although they all have the same last name.
• You know the mailman's schedule better than he does, and if he's late you drive around looking for him.
• You introduce your children as your descendants.
• You begin referring to cemeteries as ancestor farms and headstones as concrete evidence
• All your "Favorite" Web site links are about genealogy resources, historical sites, genealogy message boards or other people's family tree Web sites

You know you've got SERIOUS genealogy addiction issues when...

• the only reason you have a telephone line is so you have dial-up access to the internet to search the Web for genealogy resources
• you approach random strangers in the street who have the same surname as your great-great-great-great grandfather and ask them for their family history
• you get locked in a library overnight and you never even notice
• you have the library, registrar office and public cemetery office on speed dial on your cellular phone
• you hyperventilate at the sight of an old cemetery
• you'd rather browse in a cemetery than a shopping mall
• you think every home should have a microfilm reader
• you'd rather read census schedules than a good book
• you know every town clerk in your state by their first name and town clerks lock the doors when they see you coming
• you're more interested in what happened in 1697 than 1997
• you store your clothes under the bed and your closet is carefully stacked with notebooks and journals
• all your correspondence begins, "Dear Cousin,"
• you've traced every one of your ancestral lines back to Adam and Eve, have it all fully documented, and still don't want to quit
  

When you start to break out with GENEALOGY POX, you know there is no hope...

WARNING: Genealogy Pox is very contagious to adults who have taken on the adventurous task of compiling their family histories.

SYMPTOMS: Continual complaint from patient as to need for more names, more dates, and places of births/deaths. Patient has a blank expression, and is sometimes deaf to spouse and children. Has no taste for work of any kind except feverously looking through records at the library and courthouse. Has compulsion to write letters. Swears at the mailman when he does not leave mail. Frequents strange places, such as cemeteries, ruins, and remote desolate cemetery areas. Makes secret night calls, hides telephone bills from spouse. The patient mumbles to himself and has a strange faraway look in his eyes.

TREATMENT: Medication is useless. Disease is not fatal but grows progressively worse. Patient should attend genealogy workshops, subscribe to genealogy magazines or societies and be given a quiet corner/room in the house where he or she can work alone.

REMARKS: The unusual nature of this disease is the sicker the patient gets, the more he or she enjoys it.

NO KNOWN CURE 

Genealogy is an addiction with no cure and for which no 12-step program is available -- And I Don't Want None!

"To understand the living, you have to commune with the dead...
but don't commune with the dead so long that you forget you are living!"
(from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt)

Get Your Addicted Ribbon Here!
Embrace Your Illness and Wear It Proudly! :)

Disclaimer -- I am not the original author of many of the "symptoms." Unfortunately, I'm not that funny...  I found them on various Web sites relating to genealogy humor.  I edited some of them though and added a few of my own to reflect the symptoms of my own personal addiction
and self-admitted obsession with genealogy.

Song playing is the Beatle's "Yesterday"
This is a midi version but my favorite version is from my father Aben Marrero's CD
Aben Marrero Runs on Steel