Friday Funny ~ A Genealogy Poem

A PUZZLE IN RELATIONSHIP
       by Robert Dinsmoor

My cousin dear, my uncle’s wife,

     Explain this misty point to me,

I cannot tell to save my life,

     What our relationship may be:

My cousin, yet my aunt you’re stil’d,

     I am, which seems a sin to be,

Your uncle’s son, your sister’s child;

     And what are you akin to me?

According to the book Poems of Robert Dinsmoor, this poem was “Addressed Jan. 2, 1776 to his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Capt. James and Elizabeth (McKeen) Nesmith, of Londonderry, N.H., who married his uncle, Capt. James Cochran, of Windham, the son of Capt. John and Jennie (McKeen) Cochran, ancestors of the Cochrans of Windham, N. H.  His cousin was born March 22, 1749; died April 29, 1824.  Capt. James Nesmith, above mentioned, was born Aug. 4, 1718, just before the departure of his parents from Ireland, and was the son of Dea. James Nesmith, one of the first sixteen settlers in Londonderry, N. H.  The Nesmiths emigrated from Scotland to the valley of the River Bann, in Ireland.”

From Poems of Robert Dinsmoor: “The Rustic Bard”, by Robert Dinsmoor, James Dinsmoor, edited by Leonard Allison Morrison, Boston, Massachusetts:  Damrell & Upham “Old Corner Book Store”, 1898,   page 71.

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To Cite/Link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Friday Funny ~ A Genealogy Poem", Nutfield Genealogy, posted February 7, 2014, ( http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/02/friday-funny-genealogy-poem.html: accessed [access date]).