I researched my family tree this year with the aid of ancestry.com
In case I was related to the chap who invented the bouncing bomb.
I was shocked to the core to find we had no trace of lineage at all.
So I refocused my search to see if I was a nephew of Pope John Paul.

The ancestry research threw up some big surprises it has to be said.
I had no idea my grandmother and Harold Shipman had been wed.
Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler are part of my family tree it seems.
Happily though, I’m cousin to a goalie in one of the World Cup teams.

Please let me find traces of Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks and maybe Gandhi.
At the very least that girl from the film Grease, who played Sandy?
I’d love to be the great grandson of Beatrix Potter or Vera Lynn.
Or somehow distantly related on my mother’s side to Anne Boleyn.

This website Ancestry.com has gone and done me up like a kipper.
Who’d have thought my great uncle’s cousin would be Jack the Ripper.
In the 1601 census, in our house lived Shakespeare, the famous Bard.
To my surprise however, in the 1801 census so did the Marquis de Sade.

An elderly relative told me I might be related to Sir Francis Bacon
I couldn’t find any trace and told them they must have been mistaken.
The Dalai Lama or Robin Hood would be marvellous provenances to own.
Digging even deeper I found I was related to Idi Amin, and I was thrown.

Could I be the handsome, six times grandson of Richard the Lionheart?
What about a connection to Mother Teresa; she was such a sweetheart.
Imagine my disbelief when my family search came up with Attila the Hun.
Things got even worse, as apparently, I’m second cousin to Kim Jong-un.

I’d set my sights on being firmly connected to a well-known do-gooder.
I really hoped and prayed it might be a 5th Century Buddah.
Alas it wasn’t to be but at least I’m not related to the Boston Strangler
Turns out though I’m the nephew of J R Hartley the author and angler.