I didn’t go back to the photos right away. I read through the file that my Mom’s cousin – my second cousin? – had made. She had hand-drawn a chart, having taped together several 8x10 inch sheets when she ran out of room on one.

There were names going back several generations. I thought about how difficult it must have been to track the names of women who changed their last names to their husband’s. What I had before me was a lot of work. It stopped at several question ...