RULES FOR TEACHERS – 1872

• Teachers each day will fill lamps, trim the wicks and clean chimneys.

• Each morning teacher will bring a bucket of mater and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.

• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.

• Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a meek if they attend church regularly.

• After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or any other good books.

• Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.

• Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

• Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any dorm, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity or honesty.

• The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase in twenty-five cents per week in his pay providing the Board of Education approves.

Commandments for Ancestors

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

• Thou shalt name your female children: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, Maria, Sarah, Ida, Virginia, Mary

• Thou shalt leave NO trace of your female children

• Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, ca1l them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, and Jas making them difficult to trace

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendo regarding your place of 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

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

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

•  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.

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

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

After much careful research, it has been discovered that the artist, Vincent Van Gogh had many relatives. Among them were:

• His dizzy, aunt, Verti Gogh

• The brother who ate prunes, Gotta Gogh

• The brother who worked at a convenience store, Stopn Gogh

• The brother who bleached his clothes white, Hue Gogh

• The cousin from Illinois, Chica Gogh His magician uncle, Wherediddy Gogh

• The nephew who drove a stagecoach, Wellsfar Gogh

• The ballroom dancing aunt, Tan Gogh The bird lover uncle, Flamin Gogh His nephew psychoanalyst, E Gogh The fruit loving cousin, Man Gogh'

• An aunt who taught positive thinking, Wayto Gogh

• The little bouncy nephew, Poe Gogh A sister who loved disco, Go Gogh

• And his niece who travels the country in a van, Winnie Bay Gogh

 

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