First off, the formalities. It was our Shankley’s fourth birthday on US Independence Day, yesterday. Straightaway I should point out that Shankley is a pedigree male Bengal domestic cat because a pet named Shankley appears in my genealogical thriller novel “Where’s Merrill?” in a different guise. Being a Bengal, Shankley’s 4th birthday is a significant milestone for him. He can now be classed as an adult and he is certainly refraining from starting childish daily play fights with his younger feline house-mates as was his way a year ago.

As part of the birthday celebration, we took out Shankley’s birth certificate to respectfully remember his parentage. Yes – pedigree animals have their own birth certificates – and some breeders provide documents which are far better in content than human counterparts. Take a look at Shankley’s birth cert below. Professional genealogists would be obsolete if national authorities ever started to request such detailed information when the birth of a human baby was registered.

 As you can see, the new arrival’s full name of Sunstorm Shankley was registered as the progeny of his named father and mother, termed as Sire & Dam. Only a few obscure places in the human birth registration world bother to record an infant’s grand-parentage – but by reference to his birth document, our Shankley can name all eight of his great grandparents, and quite remarkably all sixteen of his great great grandparents. Each ancestor is given a brief physical description, and former champion show cats are highlighted in red text. It is clear that Shankley is descended from cat royalty on the paternal side of his concise Family Tree.

                                        All grown up, at age 4?

Happy birthday to Shankley and the USA