--Bern Williams--
Lord, help me find an ancient book
Or dusty manuscript
That's safely hidden now away
In some forgotten crypt
Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts
My soul when I can't find
The missing link between some name
That ends the same as mine.
I started out calmly, just tracing my tree,
to find out, if I could,the making of me.
All that I knew was Great-Grandfather's name,
not knowing his wife, or from whence he came.
I chased him through villages,cities and states,
and came up with pages of odd names and dates.
When I put them together, it made me forlorn,
I'd proven that Great-Grandfather had never been born.
One day I was sure that the truth had been found,
new dates that would turn the whole thing around.
I looked up old records from Great Uncle Tim,
and proved that his dad was younger than him.
Then just when my hopes were fading so fast,
I discovered new records from out of the past.
The facts I've gathered make me quite sad,
my dear old Great-Grandpa was never a dad.
I think some rascal is pulling my leg,
with records that prove I was hatched from an egg.
Despite all the effort, documenting my tree,
I can't help but wonder, if I am really me.
Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three,
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be.
This widow had a grown up daughter who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her and soon they were wed.
This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life;
For my daughter was my mother 'cause she was my father's wife.
To complicate the matter even though it brought me joy
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
My little baby then became a brother-in-law to Dad.
And so became my uncle though it made me very sad.
For if he was my uncle then that also made him brother,
Of the widow's grown up daughter who, of course, was my stepmother.
Father's wife then had a son who kept them on the run;
And he became my grandchild for he was my daughter's son.
My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue
Because although she is my wife she's my grandmother too.
Now if my wife is my grandmother then I'm her grandchild;
And every time I think of it, it nearly drives me wild.
For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw;
As husband of my grandmother I am my own grandpa.
Author Unknown
Author - Merrell Kenworthy
Submitted by Kathy Riddeck
Richard Rolle de Hampole ( -1349)
Author Unknown~ Michigan historical magazine
"Too bad about the data for which you wrote.
It sank in a storm on an ill-fated boat."
Stacks of old copies of wills and the such
Were proof that my work had become much too much.
Our children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugarplums danced in their heads.
And I at my table was ready to drop
From work on my album with photos to crop.
Christmas was here, and of such was my lot
That presents and goodies and toys I'd forgot.
Had I not been so busy with grandparents' wills,
I'd not have forgotten to shop for such thrills.
While others had bought gifts that would bring Christmas cheer,
I'd spent time researching those birthdates and years.
While I was thus musing about my sad plight,
A strange noise on the lawn gave me such a fright.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
Tore open the drapes and I yanked up the sash.
When what to my nearsighted eyes should appear,
But an overstuffed sleigh and eight small reindeer.
Up to the housetop the reindeer they flew
With a sleigh full of toys, and ol' Santa Claus, too.
And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of thirty-two hoofs.
The TV antenna was no match for their horns,
And look at my roof, with hoof-prints adorned!
As I drew in my head, and bumped it on the sash,
Down the cold chimney fell Santa- KEE-RASH!
Dear Santa had come from the roof in a wreck
And tracked soot on the carpet! I could just wring his neck!
Spotting my face, good old Santa could see
I had no Christmas spirit, you'd have to agree.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work
And filled all the stockings. (I felt like a jerk).
Here was Santa, who'd brought us such gladness and joy;
When I'd been too busy for even one toy.
He spied my research on the table all spread.
"A genealogist!", he cried (My face was all red).
"Tonight I've met many like you", Santa grinned,
As he pulled from his sack a large book he had penned.
I gazed with amazement- the cover it read
"Genealogy Lines For Which You Have Plead".
"I know what it's like as a genealogy bug",
He said as he gave me a great Santa hug.
"While the elves make the sleighful of toys I now carry,
I do some research in the North Pole Library!
A special treat I am thus able to bring
To genealogy folks who can't find a thing."
"Now off you go to your bed for a rest-
I'll clean up the house of this genealogy mess."
As I climbed up the stairs full of gladness and glee,
I looked back at Santa who'd brought much to me.
While settling in bed, I heard Santa's clear whistle
To his team, which then rose like the down of a thistle.
And I heard him exclaim as he flew out of sight, "
Family history is fun! Merry Christmas! Good night!"
****
The keeper of the vital records you need has just been insulted by another genealogist. Your great-grandfather's newspaper obituary states that he died, leaving no issue of record. The will you need is in the safe on board the Titanic. Copies of old newspapers have holes occurring only on last names. John, son of Thomas, the immigrant whom your relatives claim as the family progenitor, died on board ship at age 10. The public ceremony in which your distinguished ancestor participated and at which the platform collapsed under him turned out to be a hanging. When at last after much hard work you have solved the mystery you have been working on for two years, your aunt says, "I could have told you that!" The relative who had all the family photographs gave them all to her daughter who has no interest in genealogy and no inclination to share. The only record you find for your great grandfather is that his property was sold at a sheriff's sale for insolvency. The one document that would supply the missing link in your dead-end line has been lost due to fire, flood, or war. The town clerk to whom you wrote for information sends you a long hand-written letter which is totally illegible. The spelling of your European ancestor's name bears no relationship to its current spelling or pronunciation. None of the pictures in your recently deceased grandmother's photo album have names written on them. No one in your family tree ever did anything noteworthy, owned property, was sued, or was named in wills. You learn that your great-aunt's executor just sold her life's collection of family genealogical materials to a flea market dealer "somewhere in New York City". Ink fades and paper deteriorates at a rate inversely proportional to the value of the data recorded. The 37 volume, sixteen thousand page history of your county of origin isn't indexed. You finally find your great grandparent's wedding records and discover that the bride's father was named John Smith. Your grandmother's maiden name that you have searched for for four years was on a letter in a box in the attic all the time. You never asked your father about his family when he was alive because you weren't interested in genealogy then.
_____________________
Yep -- I want ancestors with names like Rudimentary Montagnard or Melchizedick von Steubenhoffmannschild or Spetznatz Gianfortoni, not William Brown or John Hunter or Mary Abott. (...or John C. Sutton).
I want ancestors who could read and write, had their children baptized in recognized houses of worship, went to school, purchased land, left detailed wills (naming a huge extended family as legatees), had their photographs taken once a year -- subsequently putting said pictures in elaborate glass frames annotated with calligraphic inscriptions, and carved voluble and informative inscriptions in their headstones. I want relatives who managed to bury their predecessors in established, still-extant (and indexed) cemeteries.
I want family members who wrote memoirs, who enlisted in the military as officers and who served in strategically important (and well documented) skirmishes. I want relatives who served as councilmen, schoolteachers, county clerks and town historians. I want relatives who 'religiously' wrote in the family bible, journaling every little event and detailing the familial relationship of every visitor. In the case of immigrant progenitors, I want them to have arrived only in those years wherein passenger lists were indexed by National Archives, and I want them to have applied for citizenship, and to have done so only in those jurisdictions which have since established indices.
I want relatives who were patriotic and clubby, who joined every patrimonial society they could find, who kept diaries, and listed all their addresses, who had paintings made of their houses, and who dated every piece of paper they touched. I want forebears who were wealthy enough to afford, and to keep for generations, the tribal homestead, and who left all the aforementioned pictures and diaries and journals intact in the library.
But most off, I want relatives I can find!!!
by Virginia Day McDonald, Macon, GATherešs been a change in Grandma, wešve noticed as of late. Shešs always reading history, or jotting down some date. Shešs tracing back the family, wešll all have pedigrees, Grandmašs got a hobby, shešs Climbing Family Trees... Poor Grandpa does the cooking, and now, or so he states, he even has to was the cups and dinner plates. Well, Grandma can't be bothered, shešs busy as a bee, Compiling genealogy for the Family Tree. She has not time to baby-sit, the curtains are a fright. No buttons left on Grandpašs shirts, the flower bedšs a sight. Shešs given up her club work, the serials on TV, The only thing she does nowdays is climb that Family Tree. The mail is all for Grandma, it comes from near and far. Last week she got the proof she needs to join the DAR. A monumental project - to that we all agree, A worthwhile avocation - to climb the Family Tree. She wanders through the graveyard in search of date and name, The rich, the poor, the inbetween, all sleeping there the same. She pauses now and then to rest, fanned by a gentle breeze, That blows above the Fathers of all our Family Trees. Now some folks came from Scotland, some from Galway Bay, Some were French as pastry, some German all the way. Some went on West to stake their claims, some stayed there by the sea, Grandma hopes to find them all as she climbs the Family Tree. There were pioneers and patriots mixed with our kith and kin, Who blazed the paths of wilderness and fought through thick and thin. But none more staunch than Grandma, whose eyes light up with glee, Each time she finds a missing branch for the Family Tree. Their skills were wide and varied from carpenter to cook, And one, alas, the records show was hopelessly a crook. Blacksmith, farmer, weaver, judge, some tutored for a fee, One lost in time, now all recorded on the Family Tree. To some itšs just a hobby, to Grandma itšs much more. She learns the joys and heartaches of those who went before. They loved, they lost, they laughed, they wept - and now for you and me, They live again in spirit around the Family Tree. At last shešs nearly finished, and we are each exposed. Life will be the same again, this we all suppose. Grandma will cook and sew, serve crullers with our tea. Wešll have her back, just as before that wretched Family Tree. Sad to relate, the Preacher called and visited for a spell. We talked about the Gospel and other things as well. The heathen folk, the poor, and then twas fate, it had to be Somehow the conversation turned to Grandma and the Family Tree. We tried to change the subject, we talked of everything, But then in Grandmašs voice we heard that old familiar ring. She told him all about the past, and soon twas plain to see, The Preacher, too, was neatly snared by Grandma and the Family Tree.
