SFX:	PAUL IN HIGH-CEILINGED LIBRARY TYPE READING-ROOM.

PAUL:	It seems these days everyone wants a pedigree.  I'm in the 
	lovely reading room at Bristol House, our local repository of 
	documents and records, and joining me is Olive Barrett, a searcher, 
	or professional genealogist.

OLIVE:	Hello.

PAUL:	Olive, why the current craze for genealogy do you think?

OLIVE:	Well, you know Paul, people have such a hard time today keeping 
	their families together, and I suppose they think the past will be 
	kinder.

PAUL:	How awful.  Anyway, last spring I asked Olive to put together 
	a Moth family pedigree and -- after forking over no small chunk of 
	change -- she agreed.

OLIVE:	Oh Paul!  Now it wasn't that much.

PAUL:	I don't know about that.  Anyway, money well spent apparently.

OLIVE:	Yes, with the help of the wonderful facilities here at Bristol 
	House, I've turned up boodles of material on the Moths  -- although 
	the research is still at an early stage.

PAUL:	What have you turned up ?

OLIVE:	Let's start with this. 

SFX:	UNSCROLLING

OLIVE:	I've put together the beginnings of a Moth family tree.

PAUL:	Oooh, a family tree...  Hm.  Looks more like a family stalk.

OLIVE:	It's preliminary.  Still, I must say, the Moth line is a very 
	noble one indeed.

PAUL:	You seem surprised.

OLIVE:	Well, it's just that your branch of the family's fallen 
	somewhat on hard times.

PAUL:	What makes you say that?

OLIVE:	For one thing it's about to die out.

PAUL:	You don't have to tell me -- Mom reminds me every day.

OLIVE:	You see, since coming to St. John's about 1750 here, your branch 
	of Moths has tended to produce a surfeit of female progeny -- example: 
	your brother Frank: three girls...

PAUL:	And they're not even his -- just kidding.  I don't know, Olive, 
	going back over the generations here, I see a lot of Moth men.

OLIVE:	Yes, but rather prone to "d. sine prole".

PAUL:	D. sine prole ?

OLIVE:	Pass away without issue.  Indeed, your family has had a large 
	number of, well ... "committed bachelors" is the term we use.

PAUL:	Hmmm.  I see what you mean, but, well, in my own case, almost 
	fifty and single, but it's got nothing to do with -- not that 
	there's anything wrong with--

OLIVE:	Anyway, you don't really qualify as a bachelor.

PAUL:	Found out about the marriage, heh?

OLIVE:	1974, wasn't it?  Divorced in '75.

PAUL:	It was a drug-induced marriage.  Too hard to explain.  
	Proceed.

OLIVE:	Your family came here from Ireland in 1751 with a 
	considerable amount of livestock.

PAUL:	 Well now, landed gentry.

OLIVE:	No, they didn't own the livestock, they were travelling 
	with them, if you see what I mean.

PAUL:	Ah.

OLIVE:	And the hard times continue for the St. John's Moths right 
	through the 19th century.  Looking through the sherriff's records, 
	I found many of your ancestors meeting terrible deaths, through 
	pestilential living when not through criminal execution.  Often, 
	I'm sorry to say, they were refused Christian burial.

PAUL:	Yes, in fact last year I visited the graveyard where many 
	of the Moths lie damned for eternity.

OLIVE:	And then, as we near the present, from criminality and vice 
	we move to servants, pettifoggers, media work and so on -- a 
	family scratching painfully back towards some semblance of respectability...

PAUL:	Painful's the word all right.

OLIVE:	From a searcher's point of view, your family history's a paradox.

PAUL:	How so?

OLIVE:	The further we move back in time, the easier it is to trace the Moths.

PAUL:	Really?  Why's that?

OLIVE:	Well, mostly because of this book I found.

PAUL:	(reading) "The History of the Moth Family".  Damn!  I could have 
	found that.  Who wrote this?  Piet Moth, hm, never heard of him.

OLIVE:	It's translated from Dutch.  The Moths were from Holland originally, 
	a very important merchant family in the lowland county of Ucker ...

PAUL:	Ya, I've heard some of this before -- family lore, you know.  I 
	actually tried visiting Ucker a few years back, but it's under water 
	again -- the dikes failed.

OLIVE:	The Moths lost it all in the tulip speculation of 1667, and they 
	became Dutch spies for the Hanover princes.

PAUL:	That sounds exciting.

OLIVE:	Of course in 1702 England became, as it is today, a German monarchy 
	when the Hanovers pulled up schnitzel and moved into Buckingham Palace.

PAUL:	English food hasn't been the same since.

OLIVE:	And this is most interesting: the Moth family figures in the 
	Dutch-English Treaty of Schleswig-Larraine.

PAUL:	That rings a bell.

OLIVE:	One Jan Pietr Moth was rewarded for unspecified services to the 
	Hanovers.  He was given a large sum of money, a vast estate in Scotland, 
	and the right to bear arms.

PAUL:	Well now, a Moth coat of arms.

OLIVE:	And here it is, in Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage.

PAUL:	Hm, unusual symbol.  Looks like a toothpick skewering a cocktail 
	wiener.

OLIVE:	Actually it's a haggis on a pike.

PAUL:	Curious.  What happened to the land and the dough?

OLIVE:	Jan Pietr Moth died in 1749.  He had two sons: the eldest son 
	inherited the estate and the vast wealth in Scotland, and he banished 
	his younger brother -- your g-g-g-g-g-grandfather, who went in penury 
	to Ireland and then, came here.

PAUL:	My line?

OLIVE:	Your line.

PAUL:	Just missed.  That's it then?

OLIVE:	I'd advise another round of research.

PAUL:	Are you kidding?  At your rates?

OLIVE:	It might be worth exploring the other line.  You never know: there 
	could be some unclaimed inheritances.

PAUL:	You think?

OLIVE:	It's been known to happen.

PAUL:	We'll talk.

OLIVE:	Oh, I've got a little surprise for you.  I found a recording of 
	your great-grandfather, Henrik Moth.

PAUL:	Go on.

OLIVE:	Yes, it's on ediphones or dictaphones, cylinder field recordings in 1920s.