Last Christmas, my husband and I looked for genealogy gifts ideas for me. We had so much fun finding cups, shirts, and jokes about genealogists! (He ended up giving me the best gift: a registration for the 3-day RootsTech 2025 conference in Salt Lake City!). Here are just a few jokes available online.

(My posts about RootsTech: “Countdown to RootsTech 2025!!” and “My experience of RootsTech 2025: Fantastic!!“)

I apologize in advance: I don’t have links/sources for the jokes below (bad genealogist!!), but you can easily find all of them (and much more!) online.

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The Van Gogh Family Tree

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

• His obnoxious brother:  Please Gogh
• His dizzy aunt:  Verti Gogh
• The brother who ate prunes:  Gotta Gogh
• The brother who worked at a convenience store:  Stopn Gogh
• The grandfather from Yugoslavia:  U Gogh
• The brother who bleached his clothes white:  Hue Gogh
• The cousin from Illinois:  Chica Gogh
• His magician uncle:  Wherediddy Gogh
• His Mexican cousin:  Amme Gogh
• The Mexican cousin’s American half brother:  Grin Gogh
• The nephew who drove a stage coach:  Wellsfar Gogh
• The constipated uncle:  Cant 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

You know you are a genealogist when…

• You brake for libraries.
• You hyperventilate at the sight of an old cemetery.
• You introduce your son as your “descendant”.
• You would rather browse in a cemetery than a shopping mall.
• You would rather read census schedules than a good book.
• You are more interested in what happened in 1697 than in 1997.
• You know every register of deeds in the state by name, but they lock the doors when they see you coming.
• You store your clothes under the bed, because your closet is full of books and papers.
• All your correspondence begins with “Dear Cousin.”
• Your email contact list contains more distant cousins than immediate family.
• You have traced every one of your ancestral lines back to Adam and Eve, have it documented and still don’t want to quit.
• You’ve tried to inspire the next generation by whispering in a newborn’s ear: “Genealogy is fun.”
• You evaluate the surnames of acquaintances (along with complete strangers) to see how they might be related.
• You love living in the past lane.
• You’ve had your photo taken in front of a tombstone and you were actually smiling!
• You know more about the past than the present.
• You have no problem substituting your great great grandmother’s maiden name for your mother’s (in answer to a security question).
• You say “Honey, I’ll just be a few minutes on the computer,” and then find yourself awestruck by the sunrise.
• You develop carpal tunnel from all the clicking.

You know you’re taking genealogy too seriously if…

• In order to put the “final touches” on your genealogical research, you’ve asked all of your closest relatives to provide DNA samples.
• Your house leans 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.
• 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.
• Ed McMahon, several TV 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?”

Definitions

• Mythology: genealogy without documentation.
• Genealogy: An addiction that you and your dead relatives can share.
• Genealogy: It’s where the answer to one problem leads to two more!
• Genealogy: In the end, it’s all relative.
• Gene-Allergy: A contagious disease that gets passed down through the generations, and you just might love it.
• Genealogist: One who disturbs the dead and irritates the living.
• Genealogist: A time-unraveler who regards a step backward as a step forward.
• Family tree: A diagram for showing which branch the nuts fell from.
• A packrat: A person who is hard to live with, but who makes a mighty fine ancestor.

Sayings, quotes, signs

• If you shake your family tree, watch for the nuts to fall.
• Can a first cousin once removed be returned?
• Genealogy is like playing hide and seek with dead people.
• Eventually all genealogists come to their census.
• A cousin a day keeps the boredom away.
• A great party is when everyone joins in the gene pool.
• Where there is a will, you’ll find a genealogist!
• I only research genealogy on days that end in “y.”
• A genealogist is a person who leaves no stone unearthed.
• Sign for a genealogist’s home office: Family research zone. Disturb at your peril!
• A day without genealogy is like… I have no idea!