"But Mr. Smith doesn't buy it?" Shelley asked.

Lucky shrugged. "Bill doesn't really say much except that he's not interested. He's not much of a talker about anything. All he wants to do is sell this place and retire to Florida."

"And you don't think it's true, either?" Jane asked.

"Oh, it might be true. I don't know. But Doris hasn't got proof, just suppositions. I used to do some forensic stuff. You know, identifying teeth of bodies the police found and such. And I know from that experience that just because something could be doesn't mean it is. And genealogy's a lot the same. Not quite as exact — it's not a science, after all — but you need more proof than coincidence. And this is a pretty long string of feeble coincidences."

"But how could you prove something like that?" Jane asked. "I mean, if you really wanted to — or needed to for some reason."

"Mainly by piling up evidence. And lots of times you can't ever absolutely prove family relationships. But if you have somebody named — oh, let's say Weirather, or something very distinct — and you know the first child of the couple was born in 1859 in Iowa, and you find a Weirather with a one-year-old child in the 1860 Iowa census with the same name as the person you know is your ancestor, and there's nobody else in the whole state with that name — well, it's not precisely proof, but it's a good indication that it's ninety-nine percent certain they're the same person. It is circumstantial, but it's a starting point. Then you can look up your Weirathers in church documents in that town and start really building your case with other evidence."

"But with a weird name like that, it makes sense," Jane said.

"You know, it's only in the last fifty years or so that we've gone crazy with forms and documents. Even at the beginning of this century, a whole lot of people were barely literate. They could write their name and do enough ciphering to pay their bills.