Taking Cellfies

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 18: Crime and Punishment

PROMPT: Our ancestors were human, so it tends to reason that someone in the family tree found themselves on the wrong side of the law. The upside for us is that they often created more records than the law-abiding ancestors! 

Yes, Your Honor, I understand the charges levelled against me.

I have been charged with three counts of missing a 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge assignment deadline.

I wish to enter a plea of guilty.

In my defense, having been fully vaccinated for over a month, I sought to break out of my quarantine home arrest and venture out into the world again—with precautions, of course. My week-long road trip in New England last week precluded the timely completion of my Challenge tasks.

If it pleases the court, I wish to submit that on said trip I did visit five cemeteries, most of those visits with the explicit intention of photographing ancestors’ headstones. Let the record show that, since my return, I have uploaded said media to both my own and my husband’s public Ancestry.com trees as well as to those ancestors’ corresponding memorials on FindaGrave.com—thus allowing other researchers and families to benefit from my research and documentation.

I beseech the court to show leniency in light of this having been a first-time offense. I respectfully request that the aforementioned media gathering and subsequent posting of such—as well as these appropriately remorseful words of the accused—be given consideration in your sentencing determination, Your Honor.

Appropriately humbled, I have chosen to “recycle” my post for Week 7: “Unusual Sources.” Because the earlier post detailed the defendant’s use of prison records in researching a relative, I submit that said relative is an appropriate subject for this “Crime and Punishment” post.

Court adjourned.