The Unknown family.
Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2010 10:01 am
This is a conversation I had with a family friend this afternoon.
She has just started her family tree research and I went around to help a little with using Ancestry and Find My Past.
This lady is one of the most intelligent people I know so I blame Genealogy for turning her brain to mush.
"Isn't it amazing how many people of the Unknown family are in my tree!" she announced in all seriousness.
She had been copying information from other people's trees and it never twigged to take the surname literaly.
I couldn't resist and prompted, "They are closely related to the Unk family."
"Ooh...I have plenty of those in my tree as well! What country does the name originate from?".
"Its Icelandic and pronounced Oonknoon or Oonk" I managed to say whilst suppressing the laughter that was threatening to escape.
Knowing she in a huge fan of Björk I thought I would go all out and said, "It is supposed to have an accent on the 'O' like Björk."
Taking the bait she asked if she should go through the tree and add an accent to make it "Unknöwn".
"That is how Björk spells it. Did you know that is her real name? Björk Unknöwn?"
She then yelled through to her husband, who was in the kitchen making cups of tea, "Hey, I might be related to Björk. She has the same surname as Great Great Great Grandma!"
She couldn't understand why I then spent five minutes laughing.
When I calmed down and explained it to her she left in a huff whilst her hubby and me spent another few minutes guffawing and chuckling.
I think he may be sleeping on the couch tonight and I am not sure if I should turn up at his 50th birthday party on Sunday.
She has just started her family tree research and I went around to help a little with using Ancestry and Find My Past.
This lady is one of the most intelligent people I know so I blame Genealogy for turning her brain to mush.
"Isn't it amazing how many people of the Unknown family are in my tree!" she announced in all seriousness.
She had been copying information from other people's trees and it never twigged to take the surname literaly.
I couldn't resist and prompted, "They are closely related to the Unk family."
"Ooh...I have plenty of those in my tree as well! What country does the name originate from?".
"Its Icelandic and pronounced Oonknoon or Oonk" I managed to say whilst suppressing the laughter that was threatening to escape.
Knowing she in a huge fan of Björk I thought I would go all out and said, "It is supposed to have an accent on the 'O' like Björk."
Taking the bait she asked if she should go through the tree and add an accent to make it "Unknöwn".
"That is how Björk spells it. Did you know that is her real name? Björk Unknöwn?"
She then yelled through to her husband, who was in the kitchen making cups of tea, "Hey, I might be related to Björk. She has the same surname as Great Great Great Grandma!"
She couldn't understand why I then spent five minutes laughing.
When I calmed down and explained it to her she left in a huff whilst her hubby and me spent another few minutes guffawing and chuckling.
I think he may be sleeping on the couch tonight and I am not sure if I should turn up at his 50th birthday party on Sunday.
