From Here to Paternity Read Online Free Page A

to a woman from Holnagrad—a princess. This Romanov cousin saw which way the wind was blowing even before Nicholas abdicated, and he—the cousin, that is—dropped out of sight. A lot of people figured he went to Holnagrad to hide out with his wife's people. But nobody's ever proved it."
    "But Doris found something that did prove it?" Jane asked.
    Lucky moved his hand in a "so-so" motion. "Maybe. She found some church records that seemed to be of the same family, but they were calling them-selves Romanofsky. This Romanofsky, the Tsar's cousin—if he
was
the Tsar's cousin at all—died in Holnagrad in 1916 or so—Spanish flu, I think. Doris pieced this together with a ship manifest dated six months later. The ship left Paris, or maybe Lisbon, I don't recall which. On it was a woman calling herself Elsa Roman and her son, Gregor. The Holnagrad princess was named Elsa and their son was named Gregor, so Doris could be right. But there's no proof at all."
    "How does all this tie up with Mr. Smith?" Shelley asked, waving at a passing waiter to get some more coffee.
    "The ship docked in New York. And just a few months later, in the archives of a Brooklyn, New York, court jurisdiction, a record appeared of a Gregory Ruman or Roman—the handwriting's terrible on the original document—applying for American citizenship and changing his name to Gregory Smith."
    "Ah! A Smith at last," Jane said. "But there are a lot of Smiths."
    Lucky nodded. "Exactly so. It wouldn't take a genius to come to this country and figure out that the best way to get 'lost' would be to call yourself Smith. And a lot of people have come here wanting or needing desperately to get lost. Anyhow, now workin' back the other way, Bill Smith's father was named Gregory. He was an old mountain man out here, turned up in the early 1920s, and was supposed to speak Russian."
    He raised his forefingers and tilted them toward each other. "So Doris worked up one line and down another and figures they match up and are the same person."
    "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. But even names were changed