Ahh! Thanks @jmarsh! So the internal RTC is just a long int of ticks. That's what I needed to know. OK nice and simple. Except for the time and date math, lol.
I need to use the RTC standalone, eg. no external sync source. It will be set manually, YMD/HMS. Example TimeTeensy3 works fine, but does not reveal much. Pretty much all the threads about the RTC involve synchronization with some external...