Genealogy with Suspense, and Some Gore

What would you get if you crossed the National Genealogical Society Quarterly with Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine? Maybe something like Echo Park. The plot of Michael Connelly's highly competent 2006 genre novel centers on a nifty genealogical problem -- of identity. (The cops know the killer, but they don't know who he is.) And here I thought I was reading it to take a break!

Methodology Monday in Maine and Illinois

The spring issue of New England Ancestors brings us Eben W. Graves, author of The Descendants of Henry Sewall, 1576-1656, writing about how researchers on two coasts and two continents put together John J. Sewall of Barry, Pike County, Illinois, and John Jenks Sewall of Bath, Sagadahoc County, Maine.

I think it's fair to say that while the internet made the process of assembling evidence much faster, it didn't change the logic of the conclusion that they were the same person. The names being the same was only the beginning. Several different records showed convergences, including a long-lost letter from 1896 -- but records being what they are, the resemblances between the two men were not perfect.

I think the conclusion is valid, but the evidence mentioned is all positive -- did anyone in the crew try to disprove the hypothesis by looking for John Jenks Sewall dying young, or living in Maine at the same time John J. Sewall was in Illinois?