The record

This book rests on documents. Here they are. Each one has its own address, so it can be linked to directly. Living people’s identifying details have been redacted, and my own. Nothing else has been altered.

Three obituaries in this family give the wrong year for a marriage. Jean’s says 1964; the certificate says 1967. Susan’s and Denver’s both say 1974; the certificate says 1976. In each case the correction came from a county recorder in Nevada.

• 1960

  Third District, Pittenger divorce

  Decree No. 126009, Third District, Salt Lake County, heard 26 October 1960 and stamped on the twenty-eighth. This is the sheet the margin note is written on.

• 1961

  Utah, termination of parental rights

  What the margin note claims, and what the page underneath it actually says. The 1961 order it refers to has not been found.

• 1967

  Reno, Nevada, marriage

  Certificate No. 695317, Washoe County, recorded 14 August 1967. It was found while looking for a crime and it ruled one out.

• 1973

  Elko, Nevada, marriage index

  A database index entry, not a certificate. Four months and eighteen days after the divorce, in a county neither of them lived in.

• 1970 and 1972

  Third District, divorce filings

  Two filings, twenty-eight months apart. Civil No. D 1714 in July 1970, Case No. D 9048 in November 1972, and a decree in June 1973.

• 1976

  Elko, Nevada, marriage

  Certificate No. 78014, Elko County, recorded Book 47, page 198. Two obituaries give 1974 for this marriage. The certificate gives 1976.

• 1986

  Longview, Washington, newspaper court column

  Two entries in a municipal court column, mother and daughter, the same store on the same day. The column prints no year of its own.