Please Be Patient

by John Comer

Please be patient, because we’re going to explore genealogy. There is a basic axiom among genealogists which is also one of the world’s greatest understatements: There’s nothing more boring than someone else’s genealogy. Never, never, rush up and tell even your best friend that after a five-year search you’ve finally learned your great-grandmother’s maiden name. And who, besides Aunt Martha, cares whether her first husband was named Sam or George? Unless you’re really careful, at the same time you’re collecting the names of a whole bunch of dead kinfolk, you’ll be saying goodbye to an even larger number of living former friends.

These paragraphs are about genealogy, but even more, about that beautiful biblical virtue, patience. Simply by reading this, you have already demonstrated what a wonderfully patient person you are.

Now that your patience is established, we’ll explore the patience required by the genealogist. One afternoon I’d spent long hours reading tedious microfiche #6046751, entitled “37,000 Early Georgia Marriages,” and along about marriage number 35,775 (so it seemed), found what I’d been searching for: Felix Walter Laney and Louisa Matthews were married January 11, 1838, in Upson County, Georgia. (Oops! A g.g.g.grandmother’s maiden name slipped in there. Please consider its boring inclusion as an opportunity for you to practice patience.) It would be easy for me to write, though painful for you to read, multiplied examples of hours of tiresome searching.

So imagine my astonishment this morning, when barely into my second week of electronic genealogy via the Internet, while searching Texas Civil War pension applications, this message came up on the computer screen:

 

PLEASE BE PATIENT. THE COMPUTER IS SEARCHING 54,000 RECORDS. EXPECT THIS TO TAKE AT LEAST 20 SECONDS.

 

This kind of response time is dangerous. I see some really serious problems ahead if we learn our lessons in patience from computer speed. It could give us false notions about our virtues by making even the least patient among us think we’re old Job himself. Psalm 40:1 says, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” Just imagine it: “I’m waiting, Lord! Patiently!! 20 seconds and counting!!!”