FROM PAGE 1 family tree. Ancestry isn’t the only resource, however, and cross-referencing can help avoid mistakes—along with knowing cursive and the incongruous lettering and/or different interpretations thereof.

That’s another story. For the present we match Ancestry to Find A Grave to reveal two more family members, “Alexandra Severance” and “Baby Severance,” the latter mentioned on the granite obelisk that marks the family’s general burial site at Cottage Grove Cemetery. Next week we return to the living past, seeking more connections derived from a greater diversity of information.

After all, there are limits to what gravestones, can tell you. Written records and the voices of the past when still living, can tell more—at least potentially.

Marked with a smartphone GPS dot and just up the hill from a white maintenance shed on the main road into Cottage Grove Cemetery, the final resting places of the Cordenio and Mary Severance with family are marked with an obelisk, their tombstones at ground level to the west. Photos by Joseph Back.