" Everyone will tell you that genealogy serves two purposes: self-knowledge and social status, some sort of pedigree divined from names, locations, and achievements of eminence. However, there is nothing quite like an anomaly to suck attention away from the droning census records. A suicide hinted at emotion and thought. A closet door was flung open and daylight flooded a skeleton. "

― Ellen Meloy , The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky