Poems
These Poems I've found below hopefully will make you smile, but as Genealogists, we can relate to most. Enjoy....
Beatitudes of a Family Genealogist
Blessed are the great-grandmothers, who hoarded newspaper clippings and old letters, For they tell the story of their time...
Blessed are all grandfathers who filed every legal document, For this provides proof...
Blessed are grandmothers who preserved family Bibles and diaries, For this is our heritage...
Blessed are fathers who elect officials that answer letters of inquiry, For--some--they are the only link to the past...
Blessed are mothers who relate family traditions and legends to the family, For one of her children will surely remember...
Blessed are the relatives who fill in family sheets with extra data, For them we owe the family history...
Blessed is any family whose members strive for the preservation of records, For theirs is a labour of love... Blessed are the children who will never say, "Grandma, you have told that old story twice today."
Author Unknown
Cooking? Cleaning? I'd Rather do Genealogy!
They think that I should cook and clean, and be a model wife.
I tell them it's more interesting to study Grandpa's life.
They simply do not understand why I hate to go to bed . . .
I'd rather do two hundred years of research work instead.
Why waste the time we have on earth just snoring and asleep?
When we can learn of ancestors that sailed upon the deep?
We have priests, Rabbis, lawmen, soldiers, more than just a few.
And yes, there's many scoundrels, and a bootlegger or two.
How can a person find this life an awful drudge or bore?
When we can live the lives of all those folks who came before?
A hundred years from now of course, no one will ever know
Whether I did laundry, but they'll see our Tree and glow . . .
'Cause their dear old granny left for them, for all posterity,
not clean hankies and the like, but a finished family tree.
My home may be untidy, 'cause I've better things to do . . .
I'm checking all the records to provide us with a clue.
Old great granny's pulling roots and branches out with glee,
Her clothes ain't hanging out to dry, she's hung up on The Tree.
--Mel Oshins
by Merrell Kenworthy
I went searching for an ancestor. I
cannot find him still.
He moved around from place to place and did not leave a will.
He married where a courthouse burned. He mended all his
fences.
He avoided any man who came to take the U.S. Census.
He always kept his luggage packed, this man who had no fame.
And every 20 years or so, this rascal changed his name.
His parents came from Europe. They should be upon some list of passengers to U.S.A., but somehow they got missed.
And no one else in this world is searching for this man.
So, I play genea-solitaire to find him if I can.
I'm told he's buried in a plot, with tombstone he was blessed;
but the weather took engraving, and some vandals took the rest.
He died before the county clerkes decided to keep records.
No Family Bible has emerged, in spite of all my efforts.
To top it off this ancestor, who caused me many groans,
Just to give me one more pain, betrothed a girl named JONES.