As professional genealogists, we are regularly contacted by members of the public who have most interesting and unusual family histories. But none have been more complicated than the man who had a very strange problem indeed. It sounds funny, I know, but it really is so, oh, he’s his own grandpa…
Now many, many, years ago when he was 23, he was married to a widow who was pretty as could be. This widow has a grown-up daughter who has hair of red; his father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed. This made his dad his son-in-law which really changed his life. His daughter is his mother, for she is his father’s wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought him joy, he soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy. His little baby then became a brother-in-law to his dad, and so became his uncle, though it made him very sad; for if he was his uncle then that also made him brother to the widow’s grown-up daughter who, of course, was his step-mother.
His father’s wife then had a son who kept them on the run, and he became his grandchild, for he is his daughter’s son. His wife is now his mother’s mother and that makes him blue, because although she is his wife, she’s his grandmother too. Now, if his wife is his grandmother, then he’s her grandchild. And every time he thinks of it, it nearly drives him wild, ’cause now he has become the strangest case you ever saw; as husband of his grandmother, he is his own grandpa.
He’s his own grandpa. He’s his own grandpa! It sounds funny I know, but it really is so, oh, he’s his own grandpa.
🙂
Visit Heir Line’s website for more amazing family histories, and iTunes to download Ray Stevens’ quirky song “I’m My Own Grandpa”!
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