Top 10 Halloween Costumes for Genealogists

It's that time of year, when the air is crisp, the leaves are turning colors, and genealogists and family historians all over America are trying to figure out what to be for Halloween. To aid in your search, I've prepared a list of the Top 10 Halloween Costumes for Genealogists.


10. A Sexy Librarian

9. One of the other librarians

Photograph by Bill Branson, National Cancer Institute. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

8. Couples Costume Idea: Your 300x great-grandparents, Adam and Eve (according to that tree you found on Ancestry, at least).

7. The Grim Reaper . . . being interrogated as to when, exactly, it was that he came for Great-Uncle Morty.

Photo by InSapphoWeTrust

6. Professional (or amateur) Genealogist - Just be yourself, while carrying a copy of Evidence Explained, a folder of family group sheets, and a portable scanner, wearing sneakers and jeans to facilitate hiking through cemeteries. 

5. A tombstone that records date and place of death and birth, relationships between the people therein interred, and an epitaph giving great insight into the life and personality of the deceased.

(I'm not entirely sure you'll be able to buy a ready-made costume with the inscription described above.)

4. Your family tree

(Just add more branches!)

3. Coat of Arms - This homemade costume is created by cutting the sleeves of of several old long-sleeved shirts and sewing them to the jacket you're wearing. Attach inflated rubber gloves to the cuffs of the sleeves, and you have a coat of arms!

2. Your favorite ancestor

One of mine

1. The black sheep of the family.

You may have to dye it black yourself; the only black sheep costumes I could find images of made the Sexy Librarian look like Mother Theresa.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon.com affiliate links (including many of the photographs). This means that if you choose to make a purchase from Amazon after clicking one of these links, I will receive a small portion of your purchase price as a commission. I personally make a point of starting my Amazon shopping through the affiliate links of bloggers and friends whenever possible, so that large corporations are not the only beneficiaries of my purchases, and I encourage others to do the same, regardless of whether they use my affiliate links or another blogger's.