Your tombstone stands among the rest; 
Neglected and alone. 
The name and date are chiseled out 
On polished, marbled stone. 
It reaches out to all who care 
It is too late to mourn. 
You did not know that I exist 
You died and I was born. 
Yet each of us are cells of you 
In flesh, in blood, in bone. 
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse 
Entirely not our own. 
Dear Ancestor, the place you filled 
One hundred years ago 
Spreads out among the ones you left 
Who would have loved you so. 
I wonder if you lived and loved, 
I wonder if you knew 
That someday I would find this spot, 
And come to visit you. 
 
 

Author Unknown

(Virginia Scott Miner, 
Saturday Evening Post November 22,1941) 

It's nice to come from gentle folk
Who wouldn't stoop to brawl
Who never took a lusty poke
At anyone at all.
Who never raised a raucous shout
At any country inn
Or calmed an ugly fellow lout
With a belaying pin.
Who never shot a revenuer
Hunting for the still
Who never rustled cattle, who're
Pleased with uncle's will.
Who lived their lives out as they ought,
With no uncouth distractions,
And shunned like leprosy the thought
Of taking legal action.
It's nice to come from gentle folk 
Who've never known disgrace,
But oh, though scandal is no joke 
It's easier to trace! 

Author Unknown

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 geneasolitaire 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 clerks 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.

by Merrell Kenworthy