Speech # 3: Organization...The Armchair Genealogist
Honorable competitors, welcome guests, distinguished judges, and fellow
Toastmasters:
With apologies to Gilbert
and thanks to Sullivan…or is the other way around? Maybe you can help out
with the chorus…
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I bought a PC program and I use it to keep track of this
This is not an obsession so I do not need an analyst
My father’s mother, Cora, she was listed in a book you see
Ten generations before her the first Talbott had crossed the sea
Where he was before sixteen fifty is a great big mystery
And that’s how I got started in the field of genealogy
I allow others to look back through times that are lost in the mist
My cousins research, I but copy, all the details that exist
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist
My mother’s mother’s fam’ly came from Holland much more recently
Emigrated just before the end of the nineteenth century
A booklet written in Dutch came from some kin known but distantly
That chronicled the van Cruynignen’s back to fifteen seventy
One year I went to a reunion of the Thomas family
It takes place each July in sweltering West Point Mississippi
A cousin had done all the labor citing our joint ancestry
They followed that line back to eighteen twenty in old Tennessee
At this point I knew more ancestors than most people I had met
Then luckily I hit pay-dirt in a search on the Internet
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist
A guy from NASA posted pages, for which I am in his debt
That showed the lin-e-a-ges for Talbott’s wives I had not seen yet
Some came from Swansea on the side of Britain where the sun does set
Welsh surnames are their father’s name with an ap precedent
I have ancestors remarkable, some of them are legendary
They’re salesmen, farmers, clergy, housewives and some Knights with heraldry
Way back when there are Lords and Counts and Dukes in my long family tree
Everybody has them, the key is to fine out who they could be
I have a very distant claim on the-e British monarchy
From sons of Edward the First of the Plantagenet dynasty
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist
The ancestors of English Kings, they can be found with little pain
Perhaps the most illustrious is the Emperor Charlemagne
But there are links to other lands where for centuries they did reign
These included Scotland, Denmark, and the lands that now make up Spain
But before a certain era, historic truths begin to rust
Back farther you can go, but on old legends can you place your trust?
Back furthest is King Priam, whose city, Troy, Greeks reduced to dust
And along the way pass Odin and Thor by whom the Vikings cussed
King Edward’s fair queen was a daughter of French King Philip the Bold
Another line that was traced branches off to Irish Kings of old
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist
To have so many monarchs as ancestors is not really rare
At thirty generations you are an ancestor billionaire
In the Middle Ages, there weren’t a billion Europeans there
If cousins did not marry, your speaker would not be here to care
These statistics apply to everyone, indeed they work for you
So ask your parents and your kinfolk, to see if they have a clue
Of where you come from, if they have any leads, that they think are true
Then follow them back as far as you can. We might be cousins too!
The you can be a model of an armchair genealogist
And read about your ancestors so you can put them on a list
After all without those long gone folks you wouldn’t e-ven exist
And at the next Toastmasters meeting you would then be sorely missed
After all without those long gone folks you wouldn’t e-ven exist
And at the next Toastmasters meeting you would then be sorely missed
I read about my ancestors and then I put them on a list
I am the very model of an armchair genealogist