Big ears

[mumjo]

While in the library this morning I was fascinated by the lady sat at one of the computers talking to a couple and guiding them through researching their family history.
There is assistance available for anyone wanting it, I'm not sure if there is a charge. I would hope not.
The name they were researching was a common one, they had a birth certificate and a marriage certificate, they knew what his occupation was and what did she show them.... she put his name in the search engine for one of the main genealogy websites available in the library and then said " you'll be able to get the quarter of his birth and year, but you'll have to send for the certificate using this reference" to which the answer was "we already know his date of birth, we have the certificate"
At this point she changed tactics 

[Treetotal]

I like that....You do get some amusing moments...I'm a volunteer at our Heritage Centre and a lady came in looking for an Edwin Spring b. 1902....after much searching I asked her where she got the information from as the date and location didn't match anything I found...she then produced a photo of a young boy on the back of which said.." Edwin...Spring, 1902"
Carol

[dafpilot]

A few years back I was making a delivery to Jane Austins house in Hampshire, and was standing in the line at the ticket desk waiting for them to sign my paperwork, when the wife of the American couple in front of my produced a copy of Pride and Prejudice, and asked the woman behind the ticket counter if "Miss Austin was available to sign it for her"

    dafpilot

[Billyblue]

One time in Greece, we were at the site of a memorial to Lord Byron.
The huge billboard detailing his relationship to Greece, was in both Greek and English.
I was reading it aloud while my friend was taking photos.
An American gent - in the obligatory big checked shorts! - looked at me in astonishment and said
"Wow, can you read Greek?"         
So I said "Yes, just a little"    (I could translate the alphabet, is about all!  But I didn't elaborate.)
Talk about gullible!!      

Dawn M

[SWar]

Then there is the one where some tourists are being shown around HMS Victory in Portsmouth and the guide points to the plaque on the deck and tells them - this is where Nelson fell.  A voice piped up from the group “ I’m not surprised, I nearly tripped over it myself”.

Sue

[alanmack]

A genuine memory this time!  Forty odd years ago I was walking past The Monument (to the Great Fire of London, 1666). It was very quiet mid-morning and there seemed to be only me and an American tourist couple. Wife to husband,"Gee! Hasn't this thing got an elevator?" 

Alan

[Lostris]

probably the same couple who commented to me just before landing at LHR - " ..... a strange place to build Windsor Castle - right on the flightpath of an International airport" .....

[mrs.tenacious]

........perhaps the same couple who (when I worked as a hotel receptionist in the 70s) I found on a bedroom corridor trying to open the 'door' that read ICE MACHINE.  It was actually the Perspex sign on the wall - the machine was sitting just behind it. 

[Meezer]

Then there were the American tourists on the boat on the River Dart seeing Agatha Christie's house - "Oh look that's Angela Landsbury's house"!