Bedeviled by the Begats

How do we honor our ancestors without boring our readers?

My mother came from a long line of Bible thumpers that stalled with her irreverent father. Canadian by birth, Wisconsin farmer by training, my Gramp used to regale his kids with dinner table recitations of what he called The Begats, which opened the Book of Matthew:

“Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; and…