The Roottrees are Dead: Complete Walkthrough

Let’s start by getting up to speed on everything that’s happened recently. There’s a lot of information here that relates to a lot of different parts of solving the game, so I won’t summarize it here; just familiarize yourself with it and I’ll recall important parts as they come into play later on.

First off, read the summary in the “Notable Events” evidence, then SpiderSearch each of the headings to read more details:

• “6Pieces”
• “The Roottree Rift”
• “Clark Rafferty-Laroux”
• “5Peez”
• “Roottreemania”
• “Anonymom”

Based on what we read in there, we can do some more searches to get the details of media referenced in those results:

• Search the library for “6Pieces” by Sam Madsen
• SpiderSearch “NEWSTime” to add it to your periodicals
• Search “5Peez” in NEWSTime
• Search “Anonymom” in NEWSTime
• Read all of the new evidence provided

Whew! That’s a lot and you should be able to do a lot of detective work on your own based on what you find here.

Meanwhile, overall the three for this part of the game is less interconnected than the original family tree from the first part. As a result, the investigations of each branch from here on out can mostly be undertaken independently, and I’ll thus cover each section in its own part of this guide. Continue on once you’re ready…

Let’s start by looking for something with Elias. As one of our first documents noted…

Originally posted by 6Pieces:

Sam speculates that Elias may have also cheated on Gwyneth.

Direct evidence about this will be tough to find given how long ago it was. There are no obvious leads to start with. How about we review some of our findings from the first part, as helpfully given by the game here?

There are a few bullet points in the “Reminders” piece of evidence, but the one we’ll follow up on is:

Originally posted by Reminders:

Family Man, a book about Elias Roottree, turned out to be propaganda, and not useful.

Not useful for the original investigation, perhaps, but let’s have another look and see if it sheds any light on our new search.

• SpiderSearch “Family Man”.

We find out that it was recently republished, and the author’s name is helpfully provided again.

• Search the library for “Family Man” by Bess Williams.

We receive a note about it in our evidence. Reading it finds nothing useful – the only relevant item here is that there’s a picture of Elias on the cover, which we can click to add to our list of pictures. That implies that he’s on the new tree and thus indeed the Roottree implicated in this part. But the book seems to be a dead end.

But can we find out anything else about this author?

• SpiderSearch “Bess Williams”.

We find out some more information about her. Not much can be directly used, but we do find mention of a “Bocadoral Library” that had a wing named after her in the ’50s. Sounds like a searchable term, so…

• SpiderSearch “Bocadoral Library”.

We learn more about the library and a clickable statue of an “unknown author” is added to our evidence. We also see a reference to “a printing press that was used by The Miami Sunday”. That sounds like something else we can look into.

• SpiderSearch “The Miami Sunday”.

Nothing added to our periodicals. But we do find…

Originally posted by The Miami Sunday on SpiderSearch:

It merged with another periodical, and became the Miami Mercury-Sunday, which folded after only a year.

• SpiderSearch “The Miami Mercury-Sunday”.

Not much more here, but we get one piece of confirmation:

Originally posted by The Miami Mercury-Sunday on SpiderSearch:

by combining the names in the way they did, it was tied for the longest title for an American newspaper at the time

We can thus infer what the other newspaper was called.

• SpiderSearch “The Miami Mercury”.

That’s more like it! It’s added to our periodicals. Let’s do some digging.

• Search “Bess Williams” in The Miami Mercury.

Some interesting stuff here:

Originally posted by Bess Williams in The Miami Mercury:

The Miami Mercury had an article about the Bess Williams section in the Bocadoral Library when it was being built in 1928. It mentions that Bess’ young son, now an orphan, was in attendance during the dedication…
…a bidding war for a planned expansion of the library in 1950. The bidding was won by “Wildcat Construction

From the first, we learn that Bess Williams did have a son whose father was not around by the time she died in 1926. Sounds suggestive, but let’s follow this chain a little farther before we reach any conclusions. The second gives us another searchable term.

• Search “Wildcat Construction” in The Miami Mercury.

Some interesting stuff here. The most important thing is the name of the owner: Frank “Wildcat” Williams. We can’t find out more about him in this periodical, but we can take the name out to the wider web.

• SpiderSearch “Frank ‘Wildcat’ Williams”.

Jackpot! A lot of important quotes in our result, but for now let’s focus on these two:

Originally posted by Frank ‘Wildcat’ Williams in SpiderSearch:

He died in 1996, age 74…
…He could barely remember his mother, and had no memory of his father.

So Frank was born in 1921 or 1922, and doesn’t remember his father. While we still haven’t found any hard evidence, for now it’s not necessary – this is just a “possible” infidelity, so we don’t have to know that an affair really happened. We just have to fill in who was potentially involved, and we have enough information to make an educated guess for the first two layers here.

And if you wanted a bit more evidence, the game has that too if you look from a different angle! We’ll take a quick detour. The Roottreemania page on SpiderSearch mentioned that Lauren’s diaries were reprinted. Let’s have a look at them.

• Search the library for “A Life Between Wars” by Lauren Roottree

A new passage is added. The relevant quote is:

Originally posted by Diary – Cruelty:

They mimic Grandma Gwyneth’s lisp and see her kindness as a weakness: “Eliath, Eliath, Pleath remember Tham.

What does that have to do with anything? Well, there’s this quote:

Originally posted by 6Pieces:

Sam also says her son Ernie once asked her “Who’s Beth” because he overheard them [Elias and Gwyneth] yelling about someone with that name.

If it was Gwyneth yelling with a lisp, she could have been saying not “Beth”, but… “Bess”!

All right, let’s fill this in. We can by this point deduce the following:

• Bess Williams was likely the mother of Frank Williams. They shared a last name and he seemed to live in the same town where she died, as an adult at the very least, and was involved with the same library. She also died when he was 4 or 5.
• Elias Roottree could have been the father. The potential affair was in the right year (1921) since he was born in 1921-22, Elias and Gwyneth argued about somebody who could have been Bess, from her book Bess clearly had a high opinion of Elias, Frank had no memory of his father, and Frank and Bess sharing a last name implies that Bess never married.
• Assuming that the statue outside the library was of Bess, she was known as an author in Miami. She was at any rate an author six years before her death, so this can be assumed to be her profession.

To fill in the last couple of details about Frank, let’s look at a couple of other snippets from his result:

Originally posted by Frank ‘Wildcat’ Williams in SpiderSearch:

After the war he ran a construction company…
…An anecdote mentions that he used to insist he married his wife Ophelia as a matter of courtesy and convenience: She wouldn’t have to change her last name.

The first quote confirms that his job is construction. The second makes it clear that his wife’s birth name was Ophelia Williams. Lastly, we know from the original family tree that Elias’s job is “President (1st)”.

Finally, there are the pictures. The picture of Elias came from searching “Family Man” in the library. The picture of Frank came from SpiderSearching him. We don’t have a confirmed picture of Bess, but we can assume she is the statue that we found when we SpiderSearched “Bocadoral Library”. And with that, the first portion of this branch of the tree is complete!

Our search for the descendants of Frank Williams starts with one more quote from his serarch result:

Originally posted by Frank ‘Wildcat’ Williams in SpiderSearch:

he is survived by Ophelia, as well as his daughters, Barb and Sharon Williams.

• SpiderSearch “Barb Williams”
• SpiderSearch “Sharon Williams”

The latter gives us nothing, but the former gives us a flyer packed with information (and a picture!):

Originally posted by Barb Williams Flyer:

Barb Williams advertises her career as a motivational speaker online…
…This flyer includes three different testimonials, from Greta Jones from WQTV-12, Vic Elmsworth from the Kikiwa Falls Gazette, and Isabel Crosby (the Superintendent of Benton County.)

Let’s tackle these in order.

• SpiderSearch “Greta Jones”
• SpiderSearch “WQTV-12”

The first gives us nothing, and the latter only gives us:

Originally posted by WQTV-12 on SpiderSearch:

Unfortunately, WQTV-12 has no online web presence whatsoever. You do find it listed on a giant list of television call signs, next to the city “Springfield,” under the heading “Effingham County.”

Time for a rabbit hole.

• SpiderSearch “Effingham County”

Originally posted by Effingham County on SpiderSearch:

Effingham County is the name of two different counties in the United States. One is in Georgia, the other is in Illinois.

• SpiderSearch “Effingham County Illinois”

Originally posted by Effingham Illinois on SpiderSearch:

Springfield is the capital of Illinois, but after perusing some of the results you find that it is not located in Effingham County.

• SpiderSearch “Springfield Georgia”

Originally posted by Springfield, Georgia on SpiderSearch:

When refine your search to television in and around Springfield, Georgia you come across a website that lists different channels available there…
…One of the entries is “Channel 12.” The news anchor listed is “Greta Flores.”

• SpiderSearch “Greta Flores”

We get a bit more information, none of it directly relevant. We do get something else searchable, though.

Originally posted by Greta Flores on SpiderSearch:

it seems some of the stories were compiled into a book simply titled “25 Stories of Sisterhood” by Ayla Hale.

• Search the library for “25 Stories of Sisterhood” by Ayla Hale

Finally! We find a story by Barb Williams here that gives us a lot more information.

Originally posted by The Beauty and the Brat:

“There was no difference, because my sister and my daughter are the same girl…”
…Barb reveals that her daughter was the result of an unexpected pregnancy when she was only 15: “I met a boy at a county fair….”
“…a friend of a friend told me he hadn’t even given me his real last name…”
…Barb also talks about when she found out she was pregnant. “I was convinced my life was over. But my parents, they took charge. I had to live at home, and work a part time job, but they removed the burden of motherhood. I managed to scrape out a degree in English, and as far as my daughter was concerned, I was her much older sister…”
“…And her creativity allowed her to open up Sherry’s Hair.”

From this, we can fill in Barb’s entry on the tree:

• We know her birth name (though we have to use the full name, Barbara) and her job (Public Speaker, the best match available).
• We got her picture when we SpiderSearched her.
• She was daughter of Frank and Ophelia, as mentioned in his obituary. Their second “child” was actually her daughter, whom they raised as their own.
• We know nothing about the true father, but the tree covers for this by automatically labeling him as a John Doe (typically used in the USA to refer to an anonymous person).

Let’s move on. The last quote above gives us another search term.

• SpiderSearch “Sherry’s Hair”

A goldmine!

Originally posted by Sherry’s Hair on SpiderSearch:

“The owner of the business is listed as Sherry Yastrzemski…
…It mentions that her husband Pete was her late husband’s college roommate…
…She also brags about her kids, Tony, Marc, and Cricket. Her oldest, Tony seems to get the short end of the stick, his two listed accomplishments are that he’s the oldest, and he’s a straight A student. Marc, on the other hand, has multiple baseball accomplishments listed. Apparently his little league team is nationally recognized…
…Cricket York is near the end, and has an entire section dedicated to her. She’s an actress on a local television show called Liberry Library, and the reason Sherry relocated from Miami to Orlando…
…her [Cricket’s] agent recommended they change her last name to York since it was easier to pronounce.

OK, let’s fill out what we can on the tree based on this.

• We know from before that her full name is Sharon Williams and she’s the younger adopted daughter of Frank and Ophelia/only daughter of Barb.
• She clearly still owns the hair salon, so her job is Hairdresser.
• Her second husband’s name is Peter Yastrzemski.
• Her oldest child’s first name is Anthony (Tony).

Steam has a character limit for guide sections, so we’ll do one more part for this branch.

At the end of the last section, we learned a lot about Sharon Williams. Let’s continue searching along those lines, starting with a search for her most famous child.

• SpiderSearch “Cricket York”

Originally posted by Liberry Library on SpiderSearch:

Cricket York joined the cast in 1997, at the age of 5 and is still listed as a current cast member.

Nothing else directly relevant in this result, but let’s look up the sponsors listed.

• SpiderSearch “Coreithmetic”
• SpiderSearch “EDUC82U”

Nothing from the former, but the latter gives us a picture with caption:

Originally posted by Tutor Advertisement:

It is labelled “Cricket and her brothers ready to learn from one of our talented tutors.”

Looking at the picture, we can fill out more of the tree.

• Cricket is the smallest in the picture. Her “hard to pronounce” last name was also shortened to York for the show. With these taken together we can assume that she is the only child from Pete Yastrzemski.
• We have two pictures of her (one from searching Liberry Library and one from searching EDUC82U), and although she is still in elementary school, she does have a job: Actor.
• Sharon’s remaining child is Marc (last name still not known yet; also, watch the spelling!).
• Cricket’s two brothers are in the one picture with her. The one on the right is both smaller and has a baseball shirt. We know that Marc is into baseball, so we can infer that this is him and the other is Anthony.
• From the age of the boys and the fact that this picture is no more than two years old (since it’s 1999 and Cricket joined Liberry Library in 1997), we can infer that they are both still K-12 students.

Almost there, but we need to find more about Sharon’s first husband. Unfortunately, we seem to have hit a dead end in our research. Let’s backpedal.

Originally posted by Barb Williams Flyer:

This flyer includes three different testimonials, from Greta Jones from WQTV-12, Vic Elmsworth from the Kikiwa Falls Gazette, and Isabel Crosby (the Superintendent of Benton County.)

• SpiderSearch “Vic Elmsworth”

This gives us a long story about a speech from Barb. Some notable quotes give us what we need to go on another trail, though:

Originally posted by Vic Elmsworth on SpiderSearch:

Barb started with a story about loss, specifically the loss of a bicyclist who had been hit by a car…
…The biker who died was her son-in-law, and the “Lanes Across America” charity was created to fill the newfound darkness her daughter experienced.

• SpiderSearch “Lanes Across America”

Originally posted by Lanes Across America on SpiderSearch:

LAA (formerly LAM) was founded in 1987 after the death of Drew Smith. Drew was biking home from work when he was hit by a car. Each year since, Lanes Across America has grown, and they now have offices in over twelve major metropolitan areas including Miami, where the charity began

This gets us one step away from completion. We now have the name of Sherry’s husband and his picture, and by extension the surnames of his two sons. But we’re still missing a picture from her. Fortunately, we can push this line a bit further, as the information above allows us to deduce the original name of the charity.

• SpiderSearch “Lanes Across Miami” (It started in Miami and LAM was the original acronym – it’s the natural fit!)

This confirms that Drew’s wife was named Sharon, and further gives us a picture including her! We’re set to finish the tree now:

• Sharon’s first husband was Andrew Smith (Andrew is the long form of the nickname Drew).
• Her sons Anthony and Marc thus have the last names (at birth) Smith.
• Sharon and Drew are the couple in the center of the picture.
• We can also infer that Pete is the man next to Drew (they were college roommates, remember) and that Barb is the woman next to Sharon. That lets us fill out the last two optional pictures.

The entire branch is now complete!

All right, this one takes place in the middle of the century. There’s a lot of potential Roottrees at this point now – far more than for #1 – and it might be hard to figure out where to start. If you’re tackling this one first, is it really the best idea?

Answer: No, no it isn’t.

You actually don’t have any evidence that you can use to make headway on this at the start of the game. To get it, you must first confirm four people from the Roottreemania “family” tree. Once you do, Sam Madsen will stop by and give you some additional evidence. Ignore the company records for now, and instead look at the two “Clementine” items to find out some interesting information:

Originally posted by Regina Clementine email:

This is all the information I have about Regina Clementine (née Salazar), from New Orleans, Louisiana and her husband Stuart Clementine…
…Her husband, who is a police officer and never knew his father, told her he thought he might be a Roottree…
…Stuart’s mother was named Mary-Beth Clementine. She was pretty well known in the 30s to 50s, a singer who went on tour to a lot of churches…
…I know for a fact that she came to Butler County a few times (I remember her from when I was a kid) and Regina said that Stuart told her that they always seemed to spend a LOT of time at the Miracle church.

Originally posted by Mary-Beth Clementine:

Stuart is the older boy wearing a vest. The woman in the photo is Mary-Beth Clementine, a singer who may have had an affair with Miracle Roottree.

The picture also has a younger boy and a man whom we don’t know anything about yet.

That’s a strong lead. Let’s see what we can dig up!

• SpiderSearch “Mary-Beth Clementine”

Originally posted by Mary-Beth Clementine on SpiderSearch:

She adopted two children in the late 1940s, Stuart and Mark…
… In 1959 it surfaced that Mary-Beth had been twice divorced, both times to her manager Sterling.

All right, with this we can already fill in most of the top of this branch of the tree:

• It’s explicitly stated that there was a possible affair between Miracle Roottree and Mary-Beth. We can thus put them in as the two parties of the infidelity.
• We know from the original story (and some text here as well) that Miracle is a preacher, and it’s made clear here that Mary-Beth was only known as a musician.
• Mary-Beth’s husband’s first name was Sterling.
• Mary-Beth’s two children are Stuart and Mark Clementine, in that order.
• Stuart is a police officer and married Regina Salazar.
• We have a picture of Miracle from the NEWSTime article (as long as you’ve looked up the 5Peez article already), and Mary-Beth and Stuart are specifically pointed out in the picture that Sam gave us.
• We can infer that the younger boy in the picture is Mark, and that the man is Sterling looking admiringly at his then-family.

Now to fill in a gap. We were told that Sterling was Mary-Beth’s manager, and we have the name of the group he ran:

Originally posted by Mary-Beth Clementine on SpiderSearch:

The only one you find mentioned was a cover of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, released under the label “New-Edison.”

• SpiderSearch “New-Edison”

Originally posted by New-Edison on SpiderSearch:

it was named after its founder, Sterling Edison. Its biggest claim to fame is being sued by the estate of Thomas Edison in “Edison Records v. Edsel…”
…You also find a few references to New-Edison and Mary-Beth Clementine on sites about old records. One collector says that the holy grail is a re-release of “The Old Rugged Cross,” and says that the first edition was originally published before she legally changed her name.

This gives us a name – in theory. But something is up with both Sterling and Mary-Beth, based on these quotes. Let’s dig in.

• SpiderSearch “Edison Records v. Edsel”
• SpiderSearch “The Old Rugged Cross”

Originally posted by Edison Records v. Edsel on SpiderSearch:

Edison Records was one of the first record labels, named after Thomas Edison. The history of the company seems very unimportant, except for potentially a lawsuit they filed in 1949, “Edison Records v. Edsel”

A website about lawsuits mentions this as a fun case because the name of the lawsuit was actually the biggest problem for the person being sued. A record producer who called himself Edison was immediately outed as not actually being named Edison.

That gives us enough to infer Sterling’s last name, but the other search was a bust. Instead, search in a more specialized resource.

• Search “The Old Rugged Cross” in Modern Music Monthly

Originally posted by The Old Rugged Cross in Modern Music Monthly:

When it was first reviewed by the magazine, however, it listed the artist as Mary-Beth Quaker.

Perfect. So we can now fill in the following:

• Sterling’s birth last name was Edsel. He tried to hide it as Edison (to avoid suspicions of German ties, as mentioned elsewhere on the Edison Records v. Edsel page), but it was outed in the lawsuit from Edison Records.
• Mary-Beth’s birth last name was Quaker, although her sons are still Clementines since she had legally changed her last name by the time she adopted them.

That leaves us with just one sub-branch. Mark has quite a bit of family to fill in, so time to do a deep dive on him.

• SpiderSearch “Mark Clementine”

Originally posted by Mark ‘Crocodile’ Clementine on SpiderSearch:

He lost his job in 1975 as a pilot for a regional airline…
… In 1982 he was arrested for transporting smuggled animals… was caught when he had to make an emergency landing…
…Apparently, the Portland Telegraph is credited as having given him his nickname…
… In 1993 he was released on parole, but his freedom didn’t last long. He was arrested in 1994 in San Diego for violating it in an attempt to visit his daughter’s graduation. He famously punched the principal, a man named “Billy Simms”.

From this, we can finish Mark’s entry on the tree:

• His only listed job here is as a pilot, which he was still doing (albeit in a less than legal capacity) until he went to prison. There’s no “Prisoner” or “Convict” option under occupations, so we can safely guess that “Pilot” is what the tree is looking for.
• Once he’s verified, we can also tack on his second picture that was added to our files.

Now let’s follow up on the other references in the above quotes.

• SpiderSearch “Portland Telegraph” to add it to your periodicals.
• SpiderSearch “Billy Simms”.
• Search “Mark Clementine” in The Portland Telegraph.
• Search “Billy Simms” in The Portland Telegraph.

Unfortunately, while this provides some interesting reading, there’s little that actually helps our investigation. The most relevant quote is:

Originally posted by Billy Simms on SpiderSearch:

Pretty much every news organization from trustworthy to tabloid seemed to have their own take on the altercation.

Our biggest hint here is the mention of tabloids. If we haven’t been digging into the other branches of the family tree yet, then we don’t have any of those right now, and it turns out our investigation is about to come screeching to a halt until we get one. So we’ll actually call it a day here for now; go hunting elsewhere until you have a tabloid in your periodicals, and once you do, we can pick this branch of the tree back up. (Do you want to know what you’re looking for and when to come back? Just check the beginning of the next part!) At any rate, other than Mark’s ex-wife, we have the entirety of the first two layers of this branch filled out.

Once we have the right periodicals, we can continue our search for more info about Mark Clementine’s family.

• Search “Billy Simms” in NEWSTime
• Search “Billy Simms” in Picotee

Originally posted by Billy Simms in NEWSTime:

they hunted down Colleen Webb, Mark’s ex-wife…
…When he was charged with assault of a fellow pilot in 1975 and lost his job, they divorced. At the time she was pregnant with their second daughter, and she felt she needed to get out before things got worse…
…She left him and moved to San Diego to live with her sister, and told her oldest that her dad had to fly planes for the army. She raised them both by herself, and although she never went through the trouble of changing their names legally, they used the Webb name so that nobody would connect them to her ex-husband.

Originally posted by Billy Simms in Picotee:

the word going around was that Mark Clementine showed up because his daughter Mary was graduating that night.

Here we go! First we can fill out the remaining empty spot in the second level of this branch:

• Mark’s ex-wife’s birth name was Colleen Webb.

Then we have another name to follow up on. Picotee told us his daughter’s name was Mary, but NEWSTime told us that she went by the last name Webb.

• SpiderSearch “Mary Webb”

We get a picture and some information about her.

Originally posted by Paranormal Travel Agency:

Mary Webb, from her website, “Webb on the Web Paranormal Travel Agency.” She’s apparently found a niche booking vacations for lovers of the strange and unknown…
…A company called Corporate Composition Photography is listed on the top left.

Okay, that’s one of the daughters. And we got another name that we can use to start down another rabbit hole. This is one of the toughest chains to follow in the entire story, so don’t feel bad if you’re joining me in the guide at this point!

• SpiderSearch “Corporate Composition Photography”

Originally posted by Corporate Composition Photography on SpiderSearch:

One of the questions, however, mentions that Val was on the cover of Telephoto and asks about Iraq…
…The question was quickly shut down by the person running the Q+A, who said “Val does not wish to answer any questions from his photojournalism days, nor does he wish to talk about LBP.”

On the face of it, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Clementines or Webbs. But it’s more that we can search.

• SpiderSearch “Telephoto” to add it to your periodicals
• SpiderSearch “LBP”

Originally posted by LBP on SpiderSearch:

Some businesses also have the acronym LBP. Your results include:
• “Lynch Building Plastics”
• “Luxury Bridal Photography”
• “Lexington Business Payroll”
• “Lincoln Baby Photography”
• “Laura’s Bras + Panties”
• “Logline Books and Publishing”

OK. At this point we are desperately trying to find the Telephoto article that was mentioned on the CCC page… for some reason. (The reason: Anything searchable has the potential to be useful!) The good news is that only two of the above entries could possibly be relevant to this. (Although Logline Books and Publishing leads to a very amusing easter egg result!)

• SpiderSearch “Luxury Bridal Photography”
• SpiderSearch “Lincoln Baby Photography”

The first is a dead end, but the second gives us a picture of a baby and another hit for Val:

Originally posted by Lincoln Baby Photography on SpiderSearch:

on the site it has a picture of a baby and a camera captioned with “Cam Lincoln reaching for his namesake. I guess he takes after his father! – Val”

We can infer from this that Val is the baby’s father, and thus finally search him by full name.

• SpiderSearch “Val Lincoln”

Nothing. Wait a minute. We weren’t looking for just anything about this guy. There was something specific we were trying to find.

• Search “Val Lincoln” in Telephoto

Here we go! An article is added to our evidence. Let’s take a look.

Originally posted by Telephoto:

This 1992 issue focuses on the photos of Val Lincoln, a photographer who went overseas during Desert Storm. He won the Sepia award for Photojournalism, specifically for the photo on the cover…
…The photo depicts Lisa Clementine…
…Val says, “I ran into Lisa just after her surgery and took this picture. Then, until she shipped out I kept finding excuses to go back and take more pictures of her… Just earlier this week she agreed to become Mrs. Lincoln!”

Yes! With this we now have everything we need to finish off this entire branch of the tree!

• Since Lisa’s last name is Clementine, and both her and her son have pictures to add to the family tree, we can assume that she is Mark’s other daughter.
• Only one daughter on the tree is married or has a kid, so this one must be Lisa and the other one Mary.
• The NEWSTime article mentioned that Colleen Webb never had her daughter’s names legally changed. That implies that they were born as Clementines, and the fact that Lisa used that name in the military bears this out.
• We can thus fill in Mark’s first child as Lisa Clementine with occupation Military.
• The second is Mary Clementine, whom we earlier learned was a travel agent.
• Lisa’s husband was confirmed to be Val Lincoln.
• Their child was found to be Cam Lincoln, who is still a baby.
• For pictures, we got Mary’s when we first searched for her, Cam’s when we searched for Lincoln Baby Photography, and Lisa’s from the Telephoto article.

All done – wait, where’s the verification? It turns out that something still isn’t quite right here. If this isn’t the last part of Roottreemania you do, you’re lucky as the wrong entry will soon be highlighted. If you do this last, however, it’s hard to know where you might have gone wrong. The answer, though, is to dive deeper on the one person for whom we can still do so.

• SpiderSearch “Lisa Lincoln”

Originally posted by Lisa Lincoln on SpiderSearch:

She makes another appearance, listed as a professor at West Point, a military college.

Ah-ha! Had to do a little extra digging to find her job change, but that’s the last piece of the puzzle.

• Lisa’s occupation is not Military, but Professor.

That is it for Possible Infidelity 2! Congrats!

Okay, the third section of the new tree is a doozy. Instead of a single infidelity that leads to a deep branch of the family tree, here we have a bunch of shallow branches since the infidelities were only about 20-25 years ago. It will take a lot of different lines of investigation to fill this part out. As a result, to some extent you can jump around between parts of this section in the guide if you don’t tackle it in the same order as the guide does, but do note that sections 4-7 all make at least some use of information learned in the previous sections, and sections 4 and 7 in particular start with big spoilers for sections 3 and 6, respectively.

Anyway, the first branch of this section of the tree is the easiest to fill out, for one big reason:

Originally posted by Notable Events – START HERE:

5Peez is the only NOTABLE person on the updated tree.

The potential child of the first infidelity has a star, so it must be 5Peez. Let’s dig into what we have about him so far to see what we can fill out:

Originally posted by 5Peez in SpiderSearch:

5Peez, aka Felix Fellowes, is a rapper…
…The review mentions his real name is David

Originally posted by NEWSTime – 5Peez Issue:

The article concerns his insistence that his father was Guy Hudson….
…[much later] one day his mother never came home from the movie rental store where she worked the register…
…He was born Felix Fellowes to Riley and Joanna Fellowes

Well, that was pretty easy! We can fill out most of this branch with this information:

• The Roottree is explicitly stated to be Guy Hudson. We know from the main game that his job is President (3rd).
• The affair was with a woman whose first name was Joanna.
• Joanna’s husband was Riley Fellowes.
• At the time of her death, Joanna worked as a cashier.
• 5Peez’s real name is David Fellowes. (This one is a bit confusing since most sources say Felix, but it turns out that what we found on the music review site, when we SpiderSearched him, is accurate.)
• His occupation is Musician.
• We got pictures of all three people from the NEWSTime story.

The only thing we’re missing now is Joanna’s original last name. It turns out that at the start of Roottreemania, we can’t find that.

Instead, wait until confirming four identities. Sam Madsen will arrive with some more useful evidence.

She provides some company records, which we can use to look up Joanna.

Originally posted by Company Records – 1976-1977:

1976: Joanna Robertson is no longer listed amongst the secretaries, but a Joanna Fellowes has been added to the list.

From here we can fill in the last piece:

• We can infer that the above change in the records is a result of Joanna’s name changing when she got married, and that Robertson is her original last name.

Done! The rest won’t be this easy…

Right now we know of one other specific mention (aside from the debunked Anonymom case) of a specific partner of Guy’s:

Originally posted by 6Pieces:

One of Sam’s farm supervisors was named “Elizabeth.” Elizabeth had a daughter, who Sam never met, but who worked as one of Guy’s secretaries. According to Elizabeth, a caterer from a local restaurant called “Antonellis” met her daughter at one of Guy’s parties, and they eloped quickly, due to a pregnancy… Rumor has it that her daughter showed up with Guy, and didn’t seem comfortable switching partners.

There’s one specific thing we can search here:

• SpiderSearch “Antonellis”

This doesn’t give us anything and mentions that we may need a more local source. Well, we heard that this restaurant is near the farm, so…

• Search “Antonellis” in Butler County Times

Much better. We get a promising story:

Originally posted by Antonellis in Butler County Times:

Christine Garland responded. She and her husband Steve, who was a chef at Antonellis, met years ago when she delivered produce from her mother’s farm…
…they reconnected by chance and eloped at the end of last year. Now, she has a bun in the oven, and they’re both working as much as they can (she’s a secretary…)

A mother who worked on the farm? An elopement with someone from Antonellis? This sounds like it might be it. We need more information before we can place it on the tree, though. SpiderSearching Steve and Christine comes up empty, but is there any other local news about them?

• Search “Steve Garland” in Butler County Times

Originally posted by Steve Garland in Butler County Times:

It seems that a local author by the name of Mark Zimmer was sued by Garland after Garland saw Zimmer promoting his book “Kitchen Tales” on television.

The details here aren’t really important. What matters here is that we got more to search for. Looking up Mark Zimmer in Butler County Times reveals that he’s the husband of the former owner of this Antonellis, but that doesn’t lead us to any new revelations. Instead we chase after the book.

• Search the library for “Kitchen Tales” by Mark Zimmer

Originally posted by Kitchen Tales on Public Library website:

No copies available. Re-released as “Garnishing the Truth”

Searching for this under Zimmer’s name gives us no results, so we have to cast the net wider.

• SpiderSearch “Garnishing the Truth”

Originally posted by Garnishing the Truth on SpiderSearch:

Garnishing the Truth is a cookbook credited to Garland and Zimmer.

• Search the library for “Garnishing the Truth” by Garland and Zimmer

We’ve found Steve Garland again!

Originally posted by Garnishing the Truth on Public Library website:

The introduction of this book is a series of acknowledgements from Steve. The first is: “Christine, thank you for everything. Your support means the world to me. You are the apple of my pie.” The second is to: “James and Robert. You’re becoming amazing men, and incredible chefs. I guess I’m a good teacher…”
…Instead of settling in court, we settled it at McCarran’s Brewhouse over a game of darts

The first quote confirms that we have the same Steve and Christine and is strongly suggestive about other family members. But let’s follow the rabbit hole from the second quote to confirm.

• SpiderSearch “McCarran’s Brewhouse”

Originally posted by McCarran’s Brewhouse on SpiderSearch:

One of them is Garnishing the Truth, which the site has this to say about- Local and regular Stevey G wrote a book about food. We prefer cocktails, but he gave us a shout out and we ain’t gonna say no to free press! So go grab a bite at his kids’ joint Fry-Dye and then swing by to meet him for a drink.”

His kids’ joint!

• SpiderSearch “Fry-Dye”

Originally posted by Fry-Dye on SpiderSearch:

It has this to say about Fry-Dye. “Wicked Overrated. I saw it in Chef’s Signature”

The rest is interesting but not directly relevant. Here we have something to search for.

• SpiderSearch “Chef’s Signature” to add it to your periodicals
• Search “Fry-Dye” in Chef’s Signature

This gives us a new piece of evidence, with a picture of two men and a lot of useful information.

Originally posted by Chef’s Signature:

Chef’s Signature, a nationally published magazine targeted towards fans of unusual restaurants, featured James and Robert Garland on the cover of their November 1998 issue. According to the article, the two brothers…
…Robert (who is three years younger than James) jokes that although the age difference has left him delegated to wear the sous-chef jacket his whole life, he doesn’t mind…
…My father was a chef and my mother grew up on a farm that supplied his restaurant…
…When we moved, they were looking to open their own restaurant together. Unfortunately, they never got it off the ground. His line cook gig ended up being less temporary than he hoped, and she had to go back to work as a secretary even after Robert was born…
…According to the article, their parents (who are now retired) visit Fry-Dye often.

From this, we can now fill in most of this part of the tree.

• Christine and Steve have two children. Only two branches of Possible Affair 3 have that many, so this must be either the second or the fifth branch.
• The couple in the fifth branch has split up, while the interview here indicates that Christine and Steve are still together, so we must be dealing with the second branch.
• Christine was potentially having an affair with Guy, since she was with him before running away with Steve.
• James in the interview notes that Christine went back to working as a secretary, so we can fill that in as her occupation.
• Her husband can be filled in as Steven Garland.
• James and Robert Garland are the two sons, with James the older. They are both chefs.
• We got a picture of both sons from the Chef’s Signature article. One of them is wearing a chef’s-type jacket. Robert mentions wearing the sous-chef jacket in their interview, so we can guess that this is him and the other is James. (This is a bit tenuous, but we also know that these are the two brothers and can swap them as necessary to guess.)

Now we’re only missing two elements: Christine’s original first name and a picture of her. To find the first, we can consult the company records that Sam Madsen provides after four entries are verified.

Originally posted by Company Records – 1975:

Farm and Manufacturing
Samantha Madsen, John Miller, Elizabeth Pharoah…

Originally posted by Company Records – 1976-1977:

1977: Christine Pharoah is no longer listed amongst the secretaries but a Christine Garland has been hired.

Originally posted by Company Records – 1978-1979:

1978: Guy Hudson replaces Zacariah Morden…
…1978: Christine Garland is no longer working for Roottree.

We have a pretty good guess at the last name from the first entry. Remember that we got started on this trail because of a story from Sam’s farm supervisor Elizabeth. Then the entry from 1977 confirms our suspicions.

• Christine’s last name can be entered as Pharoah.

Now there’s just the picture, and this is one that you honestly just have to wait to stumble across. Eventually, from other investigations, you will get a picture of Guy Hudson and Zacariah Morden shaking hands, presumably handing off the presidency. There’s a woman in the background of the picture. The entries from 1978 above note that Christine was still a secretary around this time, so with this known (and by process of elimination as we fill in the rest of the tree) we can guess that she is the woman in the picture.

And that completes this branch!

After the first two branches of this section are done, there’s no obvious leads to the next one. Instead, we need to look more into Guy’s activites in general to search for a lead.

If you’ve followed this guide in order up to this point, there’s one bullet point left from Sam Madsen’s book that we haven’t looked into:

Originally posted by 6Pieces:

Guy’s main positive contribution to the company involved expanding to markets previously untapped by Roottree. However, when he went on trips overseas, they were often for weeks at a time and Guy was known for spending more time and money on unofficial business than meetings with distributors and manufacturers. It was said that he bribed at least one politician to open a factory in Brazil.

Let’s look further into this.

• SpiderSearch “Roottree Brazil”

Originally posted by Roottree Brasil on SpiderSearch:

It was developed as part of the Roottree Everywhere initiative, near the beginning of 1979.

Bingo! Our search term was close enough to find the company. There’s a lot of information here about it and a lot of searchable terms about people and places here, but for the moment let’s focus on the above quote.

• SpiderSearch “Roottree Everywhere”

Originally posted by Roottree Everywhere on SpiderSearch:

Each of the countries had an entirely new company formed, mostly by making deals with local distributors and manufacturers:
• Roottree Aus
• Roottree Brasil
• China Roottree
• Roottree France

There we go! Now we can look into each location and see what there is to find out about Guy’s trips overseas.

We’ll start with the one we were already looking at:

Originally posted by Roottree Brasil on SpiderSearch:

A small town named Alvalagos (near the municipality of São Bernardo do Campo) became the location chosen by the Roottree Candy Company after a newly elected local politician named Edson Soares heard that they were planning a new factory and petitioned them in early 1979.

• SpiderSearch “Edson Soares”

Originally posted by Edson Soares on SpiderSearch:

In what the paper speculates was a move to counteract this unpopularity, his wife Sonia was discreetly put in charge of a television station called Telerede.

• SpiderSearch “Telerede”

Nothing useful. All right, let’s move on to the next country.

• SpiderSearch “Roottree Aus”

Originally posted by Roottree Aus on SpiderSearch:

According to a history website for Roottree Aus, Charles Martin, who owned a company that manufactured licorice in Australia was tapped to run the Roottree factory after he impressed the American leadership of the Roottree Candy Company at the time.

• SpiderSearch “Charles Martin”

Originally posted by Charles Martin on SpiderSearch:

Charles’ vast fortune was passed along to his daughter, Robyn Martin, who sold both businesses at first opportunity.

• SpiderSearch “Robyn Martin”

Originally posted by Robyn Martin on SpiderSearch:

She has no husband, and there was a widely circulated rumor somewhere in the mid 70s that she had a medical procedure to ensure she never would have children…
…Martin seemed to lean into the rumors. In the 80s, she once showed up at a charity function with three very attractive men…

Robyn seems to be the right age for Guy to have had an affair with her, but if there was one it seems no children came out of it. All right, next country.

• SpiderSearch “China Roottree”

Originally posted by China Roottree on SpiderSearch:

Lang Hongbo, who was said to personally win over the Roottree family, and was the owner of multiple textile factories…
…his brother Lang Hongyu took control upon his death in 1986. After Hongyu died in 1992, it passed to the oldest child from the next generation, Lang Xinyu.

• SpiderSearch “Lang Hongbo”
• SpiderSearch “Lang Hongyu”
• SpiderSearch “Lang Xinyu”

Originally posted by Langtai Textile Corporation on SpiderSearch:

You come across a website for the LangTai Textile Corporation, which is a company that has helped expand Roottree’s products to China since the late 1970s.

Originally posted by Lang Xinyu on SpiderSearch:

Lang Xinyu (In China, the family name comes first, so Lang is her last name) is a businesswoman currently running the LangTai Textile Company.
There is an unsourced picture of Xinyu in the article. It says that it’s from 1992, when she took over. (She was 45 at the time.) It has been added to your evidence.

We get a clickable picture of Xinyu. This is promising, but let’s explore the last other country before following up on this.

• SpiderSearch “Roottree France”

Originally posted by Roottree France on SpiderSearch:

The CEO of Roottree France was meant to be Tristan Robert.

• SpiderSearch “Tristan Robert”

Originally posted by Tristan Robert on SpiderSearch:

The translation is as follows: “Guy, the president of Roottree, was one of the worst men I have ever met. He approached my wife about having an affair, which she refused. He then kept insisting that this was the best way to celebrate the end of our business contract. I don’t think he expected her to say no. And I don’t think he thought she would tell me what happened.”

This seems to be a dead end, but does confirm that Guy was open to propositioning the families of his foreign contacts. Worth keeping in mind.

All right, that’s our general look into all of the foreign Roottree branches. Next we’ll look into the best lead we have among them.

Let’s step back a bit. Our best lead right now is Lang Xinyu. We actually have a picture of her, which means there must be a spot for it somewhere on the tree. She is associated with the company that was involved with China Roottree, and also would have been in her early 30s or so when Guy visited, so they are likely to have interacted and she seems like someone whom he would have been interested in. We couldn’t find any more by SpiderSearching her, but do we have other sources that could have more information about her?

• Search “Lang Xinyu” in Business Watch

Originally posted by Lang Xinyu in Business Watch:

Searching for Lang Xinyu separately brings up much fewer results than LangTai.

While interesting, the page we end up with does not advance our investigation, but the above quote suggests another search term.

• Search “LangTai” in Business Watch

Originally posted by LangTai in Business Watch:

Apparently, at the time, the CEO of LangTai was Lang Hongbo, and his younger daughter Lang Xinyao and her husband could not have children, so in an attempt to create a suitable heir he paid Qigenes to have their child implanted in his older daughter, who was unmarried. The cost for this was apparently 380,000 Yuan, or just over 100,000 USD.

Interesting. Her SpiderSearch page mentioned her using IVF as well. Here we have a name, though.

• Search “Qigenes” in Business Watch

The article mentions the whistleblower’s claim: Qigenes will sometimes claim that they performed IVF when they did not. This would often be used as an excuse for an otherwise unexplainable pregnancy. They’d fly their clients to America, where they would stay for an extended period of time, then return to China with news of a successful IVF pregnancy.

Ah-ha! This is certainly suggestive. (We find a similar result if we SpiderSearch Qigenes.) So what happened to the baby that came from this supposed IVF procedure? Let’s see if we can find the sister.

• SpiderSearch “Lang Xinyao”

We get a page that we also could have found by searching for one of the companies listed on LangTai’s SpiderSearch result – and it continues our trail.

Originally posted by Peace of Asia on SpiderSearch:

The business is said to be owned by husband and wife Jerry and Linda Han. Their Chinese names are listed too, and from using an online translator it seems that Jerry is Han Junwei and Linda is Lang Xinyao.

• SpiderSearch “Linda Han”

Originally posted by Hangin’ with the Hans on SpiderSearch:

Jerry, Linda, and Mike Han appeared recently on a website called “Phocus on Philanthropy…”
…Linda’s father led a large company (this article never names it)…
…[Linda says] “I was absolutely terrified to move to the United States but my big sister was desperately in love with the idea. She used to have this ‘Butch Cassidy’ poster on her wall and was obsessed with Robert Redford…”
“…When we had Mike we never even considered giving him a traditional name…”
“…Our niece, who grew up there was the opposite. She couldn’t wait to get here. She started calling herself “Lucy Lang” in high school and flew out here as soon as she graduated. The name change apparently drove my sister absolutely loco.”

Here we go! The second quote is sufficient confirmation that this Linda Han is the same Lang Xinyao from LangTai. The third quote reveals that Xinyu used to have an obsession with America (and if we SpiderSearch Robert Redford, the game tells us that he is a redhead as well), making a fascination with the redheaded American visitor Guy much more likely.

But the fourth quote suggests that they did not have Mike with Xinyu’s help! They just matter-of-factly state that they “had” him – plus they were in America by this time, not in China where Xinyu returned after the supposed IVF procedure! Coupled with the revelation in the fifth quote that Xinyu had a previously unmentioned daughter, it strongly suggests that she was the result of Xinyu’s pregnancy when she visited America, not Mike.

This is enough to soft-confirm Xinyu’s spot on the tree:

• We never heard of any marriage or divorce, so she must be the third branch in this section – the only one that never married.
• Her name is entered as “Xinyu Lang”, as the game reminds us that in China the last name is traditionally listed first. (Of course, the game still displays this as “Lang, Xinyu”.)
• She is stated to currently be a CEO.
• We got her picture when we SpiderSearched her.

Now let’s look for more about her daughter.

• SpiderSearch “Lucy Lang”

Originally posted by Lucy Lang on SpiderSearch:

A Lucy Lang is mentioned on a robotics website as part of “Team Talonclaw.” Team Talonclaw are one of only two teams from the US participating on a new robot-based show in the UK.
Another Lucy Lang is part of a small women’s a cappella group in Los Angeles called the “Gin and Tone-ics”
A third Lucy Lang works in New York for a business called “Corporate Synergetic Solutions Unlimited.”

Got to go further down the rabbit hole, huh? Well, let’s start from the top.

• SpiderSearch “Team Talonclaw”

Originally posted by Team Talonclaw on SpiderSearch:

Team Talonclaw is the robotics club of MidEastern University…
…At the bottom, the traveling members of Talonclaw are listed as team captain Jaya Patel, and supporting members Lucy Lang and Kurt Hauser.

Lucy Lang is mentioned again, but we need more info.

• SpiderSearch “MidEastern University”

Originally posted by MidEastern University on SpiderSearch:

The college has embraced this, calling their newspaper the “Hederald”

• SpiderSearch “Hederald” to add it to your periodicals
• Search “Team Talonclaw” in The Hederald

Originally posted by Team Talonclaw in The Hederald:

The only one that catches your attention is Lucy Lang. She grew up in China as Min Lang, but came to the US specifically to attend university. She says she grew up around factory-scale machines that assembled products that would be shipped all over the world

This sounds like the one we’re looking for! The clickable picture we get serves as confirmation, and for good measure, looking into the other two Lucy Langs listed in the initial search yields nothing useful. It turns out that this time, the first choice is the correct one!

Let’s finish this branch of the tree, then:

• Lucy’s birth name is Min Lang.
• She is currently a college student, since she’s in a college robotics club.
• We got a picture of her from the Hederald.

Score one more branch complete!

By the time we’ve filled out the first three branches, we’ve hit another rut in our investigation. It’s time to search more broadly again, rather than following a specific lead.

Let’s look more deeply into what Roottree has been up to lately. We found out a lot at the start of the Roottreemania story, but we didn’t consult a lot of sources outside of SpiderSearch. We’ll see what other periodicals can tell us about the new leadership.

• Search “Clark Rafferty-LaRoux” in Business Watch

Originally posted by Rubie Legal Enterprises in Business Watch:

Clark Rafferty-LaRoux as well as Rubie Spratt and her company Rubie Legal Enterprises were featured in Business Watch after the company took over as the keepers of the Clanced Trust.

Ah! Here’s a new organization. There’s a number of different ways that this search could take us, and if you thoroughly go down these rabbit holes, you’ll find a lot of interesting info. For now, though, to keep the guide focused, I’ll only cover the one that actually advances this specific investigation.

• SpiderSearch “Rubie Legal Enterprises”

Originally posted by Rubie Legal Enterprises on SpiderSearch:

They were recently in the news due to a high profile lawsuit they raised against Sisely Sanchez.

• SpiderSearch “Sisely Sanchez”

Originally posted by Sisely Sanchez on SpiderSearch:

Recently, Sisely appeared in a magazine called Picotee with an article about a book she had been commissioned to write for Guy Hudson. The magazine and Sisely herself were immediately issued a cease and desist due to its inclusion of pictures that she never had the rights to publish.

• SpiderSearch “Picotee Magazine” (just Picotee will result in a deliberately unhelpful answer)

Originally posted by Picotee Magazine on SpiderSearch:

It tends to contain tabloid-esque articles that appeal to a wider variety of audiences…
…During the height of Roottreemania, Picotee featured an article about Sisely Sanchez, an author. She claims to have written an unread book about Guy Hudson. The article was not even the main focus of the issue, yet the magazine was threatened legally by the Roottree Corporation.
That particular issue, the “Big Sass Sea Bass” issue was pulled from shelves. It has now become a collector’s item, especially amongst conspiracy theorists attempting to figure out what the Roottree company was hiding.

Woo, we found a tabloid! It’s added to our periodicals as well. A book about Guy Hudson sounds big. What can we find about it?

• Search “Big Sass Sea Bass” in Picotee

Unfortunately, we only find the incomplete version. We need a full version. Did our previous result say anything about who might know more about it?

• SpiderSearch “Conspiracy Theories”

This wouldn’t have given us anything in the original story, where we had to find a more specific search term. Roottreemania is kind to us, though, and this search term brings us back to our conspiracy theorist friend who unwittingly led us to Chris Rafferty before. This page is quite entertaining overall, but there’s one particular bit that’s actually relevant:

Originally posted by Thomas Overwood on SpiderSearch:

This newfound focus on death-faking seems to coincide with a post mentioning that he’s begun believing the “Guy’s Not Dead” theory.

• SpiderSearch “Guy’s Not Dead”

Jackpot! We find the full article with Sisely and get a couple of new photographs. Let’s focus on the latter for now.

The first photograph has Zac Morden and Guy Hudson shaking hands with an unknown woman in the background. It turns out this is not relevant to filling out this branch of the tree – the woman is simply a person we’ve learned more about elsewhere, and this is where we get her picture.

Instead, focus on the second picture, with Guy and three hitherto unknown people. The caption calls attention to the Christmas tree in the background. Can we find any extra evidence that suggests where this may have been taken?

Originally posted by Picotee – Page 1:

In Christmas 1979 he went to Brazil to open the ‘Roottree Brazil’ factory.

Ah-ha! Brazil! Let’s review what we previously found out about it in part 3. If you’re not following the same order as this guide and haven’t done that yet, SpiderSearch “Roottree Brazil” and follow the rabbit holes until you gain the below information:

• Edson Soares successfully lobbied for the factory to be built in his town.
• His wife Sonia was put in charge of a local TV station.
• We didn’t find anything useful about the station.

I deliberately stopped the investigation there at the time, but we didn’t turn over every stone possible. We searched her husband and her TV station, but not Sonia herself.

• SpiderSearch “Sonia Soares”

Originally posted by Sonia Soares on SpiderSearch:

SpiderSearch does return a page that lists a news anchor in Brazil named “Flavio Soares” who has a mother named Sonia.

• SpiderSearch “Flavio Soares”

Originally posted by Flavio Soares on SpiderSearch:

he’s currently dating a supermodel named “Ashleigh York…”

Flavio looks promising, and we even get a clickable picture of him, but we still need more information.

• SpiderSearch “Ashleigh York”

Nothing useful here. Time to look into periodicals that may have featured her.

• Search “Ashleigh York” in NEWSTime
• Search “Ashleigh York” in Picotee
• Search “Ashleigh York” in Teen Blast!

The first two surprisingly give us nothing, but the third is a success.

Originally posted by Ashleigh York in Teen Blast!:

she’s dating Flavio Soares…
“…I felt pretty stupid once I realized that we were going to his party. Well, his mother’s party. She runs a media empire down there called Transmissãopaulo.”

• SpiderSearch “Transmissãopaulo”

Originally posted by Transmissãopaulo on SpiderSearch:

Transmissãopaulo is a massive media group owned and run by a mysterious woman named Sonia Alves…
…Nia received a significant inheritance in 1980, and invested it in “many different manufacturing businesses” in her hometown in Brazil. At the same time, she had just begun to learn the ins and outs of running a television network…
…the page about Nia lists her as unmarried.

All right, this is enough to deduce this part of the tree:

• Guy is shown cozying up to the woman in the photograph from Picotee, and we know from the story of the Roottree France misadventure that he was willing to proposition the wives of his potential business partners.
• Thus, we can infer that this couple is Edson and Sonia Soares, and Guy may have had an affair with Sonia.
• Sonia Alves was just starting to learn about running a TV network in 1980, and has a son with the last name Soares. From these we can infer that she is the same as Sonia Soares.
• Since her site lists her as unmarried, we can infer that she at some point divorced Edson and resumed using her birth last name – thus we can fill her in as Sonia Alves.
• We found in our research that she is now a media mogul.
• Her son is Flavio Soares, a newscaster, and we got his picture when we SpiderSearched him.

And that’s it – only one more branch to go! As a side note, thanks to the pictures from Picotee, you can also now fill out two additional pictures for Guy and one for Zac Morden (the latter in the original tree).

The last installment in the Many Misadventures of Guy is best put off until you’ve reached a certain point in the investigation that I outlined in Part 5.

Specifically, you need to find the Picotee article. Once you do, there’s a clue there to point you in the direction of the final woman that we are searching for:

Originally posted by Picotee – Page 1:

“He sent his mistress, Suzy something, into the bathroom to proposition me. Poor girl. I remembered her from our trips overseas.”

Suzy. Not much of a lead, but it’s a start. Can we find anything about her in the company records?

Originally posted by Company Records – 1978-1979:

Special Services – Interpreter
1979: Susan Ford was hired under a special category that only existed for one year.

This seems likely. She’s the only potential “Suzy” in the records, and her serving as an interpreter would explain why she went on Guy’s foreign visits. Can we find out more about her?

• SpiderSearch “Susan Ford”
• SpiderSearch “Suzy Ford”

Nothing. So much for that.

Okay, at this point we once again simply have to comb through the information we have and look for something that we can follow up on. This is one of the most obscure references in all of Roottreemania, so it’s probably going to be one of the very last parts of the tree that you fill out. That makes the Intuition rating helpful here. (Also if you are figuring the game out on your own, you will likely look at a lot of other things before reaching the point that I jump to below.)

By the lategame, there won’t be much left in your evidence that still has a rating, but there still is the company records. Let’s see if we can find anything searchable from there.

Originally posted by Company Records – 1980-1981:

1981: “Grandorf Dove” Donation

That’s something.

• SpiderSearch “Grandorf Dove”

Originally posted by The Grandorf School for the Deaf on SpiderSearch:

The Grandorf School for the Deaf, formerly Grandorf Dove, is located about an hour from where the Roottree offices used to be in Butler County…
…You scan through all of the biographies, and find that the principal, Ms. Ford is fluent in five languages, including ASL (American Sign Language…)
…It mentions that she was responsible for securing funding for the “Hudson Wing”

Ford? Hudson? This seems to be the lead we were looking for.

• SpiderSearch “Hudson Wing”

Originally posted by The Hudson Wing on SpiderSearch:

According to their history site, they got their name after the president of the Roottree company generously donated $250,000 towards the construction of the building…
…It mentions that the donation came at the insistence of an employee of Roottree at the time.

This further suggests the involvement of Susan Ford, but we need more details. Fortunately, as the first page mentioned, this is in Butler County.

• Search “Hudson Wing” in Butler County Times

Originally posted by Grandorf Dove in Butler County Times:

Grandorf Dove was a school for the deaf near Butler, and was regularly listed in articles with other local schools…
…until the last mention in 1990…
…It seems that someone defaced the school and vehicles outside of the brand new “Hudson Wing” of the school…
…There was one arrest, Thomas Hughes…
…Apparently, the destruction came weeks after he married the school’s newest teacher Mrs. Hughes…
…Mr. Hughes was convinced that he was not the father of Mrs. Hughes’ current pregnancy.

This seems to confirm our suspicions. Let’s go over what we can conclude and enter on the tree:

• Susan Ford was an interpreter at Roottree for one year. There is now a Ms. Ford who is principal of the nearby school for the deaf and fluent in five languages. It seems likely that these are the same person, and also the same Roottree employee who convinced Guy Hudson to fund the Hudson Wing.
• The Picotee article told us that Guy had a mistress known as “Suzy” who went with him overseas. This is almost certainly Susan Ford.
• We can thus fill in the last affair partner as Susan Ford with occupation “Principal”.
• For her picture, take a look at the Christmas party picture from Picotee. There is one woman in the background whom we have to this point not identified. Since we know that Susan was traveling with Guy, and by the time you reach this point in the investigation there are virtually no other options, we can assume that this is Susan.
• Thomas Hughes attacked the Hudson Wing in the belief that his new wife, also a new teacher, was pregnant from another man. This is enough for us to assume that he was the (short-lived) husband of Susan Ford and the attack was motivated by a believed affair with Guy.

So there’s that part of the tree filled in. Just one part to go in this section, as we track down Susan’s children…

At first glance, we don’t have any additional leads to find out more about Susan Ford’s two children (and searching “Susan Hughes” is no help). But note from one of the previous quotes that the Butler County Times stopped mentioning Grandorf Dove in 1990. Why might they have done that?

The answer: because they changed their name.

• Search “Grandorf School for the Deaf” in Butler County Times

Jackpot!

Originally posted by Grandorf School for the Deaf in Butler County Times:

the “Ford Sisters” who attend public school in Butler County, are one of only a handful of identical twins in the world who suffer from two different genetic issues. One of them has asthma, and the other has a deadly allergy to peanuts. Their mother, a “Ms. Suzie Ford” who is principal at the nearby “Grandorf School for the Deaf”…
…she asked if her daughters, Melissa and Heather, could be useful and it turns out, they were. She says, “They couldn’t be more different. My youngest (we all call her that even though it’s only by about 15 minutes) is shy but essentially hasn’t stopped running from the moment she learned to scamper. Asthma has kept her sister off the soccer field, but she’s the definition of ‘extrovert’ and is even performing in a local production of ‘Is There Life After High School?’ later this year.”

We get a picture of the twins, as well as more confirmation that it is Susan Ford who became principal. So we know their names and can tell which one is older in the picture. The only remaining question is which order their names come in. Fortunately we have something else to search from this.

• SpiderSearch “Is There Life After High School?”

Originally posted by Is There Life After High School? on SpiderSearch:

Anyways, the key word in that Butler County Times article was “local.”

Oh, you.

• Search “Is There Life After High School?” in Butler County Times

Originally posted by -“Is There Life After High School?” in Butler County Times:

The cast list mentions some names, including a Heather Ford.

Bingo. Let’s fill out the tree.

• Susan’s daughter’s names are Heather and Melissa Ford, and we got their picture when we looked up the school’s new name in Butler County Times. Conveniently, they are holding an inhaler and epi-pen in the picture.
• The article tells us that the older sister has asthma, so she’s the one with the inhaler. The other is the younger sister.
• The article also mentions that the older performed in the play. We found Heather mentioned in the play’s castlist, so she is the older sister.
• Lastly, it was confirmed that they are still K-12 students.

Done! But wait a minute… we’ve completely filled out Possible Infidelity 3 now, but we’re still missing one picture each of Susan and Guy. How come?

This is completely optional, of course. But the guide wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t quickly go through the chain needed to find these pictures. The following also assumes that you HAVE otherwise filled out Possible Infidelity 3 already!

Look at the rest of the family tree, including the original. Are there any other pictures missing?

Yes, as a matter of fact (at least if you’ve followed this guide closely and haven’t gone searching everything else). Three people in the original family tree had a spot added for an extra picture at the start of Roottreemania: Zac Morden, Clark Rafferty, and Chris Rafferty.

We found the extra picture of Zac with the Picotee article. That leaves Clark and Chris. We already have looked into Clark some, so let’s go with his son instead. Look him up in the same place where you found info about him in the original game.

• SpiderSearch “[email protected]”

This gives us a picture with the following information:

Originally posted by Chris Rafferty – In the Office:

According to Chris, it’s a photo of him, his father, and Guy Hudson.

So we can fill those three in. As for the mystery woman on the left, we can eventually deduce by process of elimination that it is Susan Ford. There’s one additional clue for this:

Originally posted by Picotee – Page 1:

“The last time [Guy] and I met he had even switched out his orange suits for the same green ones Elias wore.”

Guy is wearing a green suit in the picture, so we can assume that this is at the end of his life – which was also when he was involved with Susan. That further indicates that Susan is the woman in the picture. Go ahead and fill it in, and then we’re finally done with this portion!

Compared to everything else, this is a breeze, and while I put it at the end (because it’s the rightmost entry in the game), it’s honestly a great target if you’re looking to get those first four entries locked in. To go after this one, take a look at the original family tree. Who there was going to be expanding the family soon, or would have had significant news in the past eight months for any other reason?

Answer: The recently-elected and pregnant local politician.

• SpiderSearch “Stephanie Jones”

Bingo! We get a picture of her, Brian, and their new baby, and the following information:

Originally posted by Stephanie Jones on SpiderSearch:

“Our daughter was named after her Grandmother, which ended up being very fitting considering she was born the night before Christmas!”

And that’s all we need to fill out this one:

• We know from the original family tree that the parents are Stephanie Landon (the Roottree blood relative) and Brian Jones, and that Stephanie’s occupation is Politics.
• The baby is a new Jones, and obviously a baby by occupation.
• The above quote indicates that the first name is somehow related to Christmas. There are a couple of potential options that we can guess from – Angela for angels, Carol for Christmas carols, and Mary for the virgin Mary. In this case guessing is, I think, expected, and doing so will reveal that the answer is Carol. (The other possibility is that she’s named after Caroline Morden – to me it seems unlikely that they would shorten the name if they were naming the baby after her, though. Until I was finalizing this guide this hadn’t even occurred to me, and I’d always assumed that Carol was Brian’s mother.)
• We got a picture of all three when we looked up Stephanie.

And there’s that one done!

Once you complete the entire available Roottreemania tree, you’ll unlock a two-part finale. The second part, looking into all of the potential relations and confirming whether or not they are in fact Roottrees, is itself quite extensive, to the point where I’m putting it in its own separate guide. For this guide, though, we’ll definitely cover the first part – filling in the new entries that opened up on the family tree.

Before I begin, I’ll note that this part of the game is completely optional. You can completely ignore these entries, and the only difference from if you filled them out completely correctly is two unimportant lines at the start of the final cutscene. With that said, given the content of said cutscene, I think it’s safe to say that the game expects you to fully look into this. You’ll get the basics of what’s up with this branch, but a lot of details will be missing. It’s definitely more rewarding to look into it before triggering the ending. So let’s dive in!

The reason for this part of the tree showing up now is the revelation that Rubie Spratt, in charge of legal procedures for Roottree, is possibly not being completely honest in her dealings (and particularly so where DNA testing is concerned). Additionally, the new part of the tree is yet another branch from the Misadventures of Guy. What have we heard about that shares these two common factors?

Here’s a hint: it’s discussed in the only piece of evidence remaining with a deduction rating (at least if you filled in all optional entries before reaching this point).

Originally posted by Notable Events – START HERE:

In July, an anonymous woman (who the press began to refer to as Anonymom) appeared in interviews with her face and voice disguised. She claimed that an affair with a Roottree led to the birth of her daughter, a.k.a “Jane Doe Roottree…”
the DNA test (orchestrated by lawyers on both sides) proved that her daughter was not a Roottree.

Originally posted by Anonymom on SpiderSearch:

she claimed she’d slept with Guy Hudson…
…Jane Doe Roottree has already been eliminated as a potential new Roottree by the company’s lawyers (who are the ones verifying your work). Anonymom’s affair does not appear on your updated tree.

The company’s lawyers eliminated her, huh? With Rubie Spratt no longer trusted, that would give a reason to revisit this case. And the alleged affair was with Guy Hudson. I think we can assume that this is what we’re looking for!

The problem with Anonymom, though, is that, well, she’s anonymous. We read the NEWSTime article back at the beginning of the story (you did, right???) and it specifically did not reveal anything about her identity. We could start doing some detective work and poring through the company records to determine who specifically it might be. But it turns out that this alone is not enough; we can’t find enough about any secretaries through SpiderSearch to determine what happened to Anonymom or whom her daughter we might be. We need another source. NEWSTime was a bust; what other source have we found over the course of completing Roottreemania, that might be willing to reveal more details?

• Search “Anonymom” in Picotee

Originally posted by Anonymom the Anonycon in Picotee:

They said Anonymom worked as a manager at a department store in North Carolina, and her daughter’s name was Courtney-May. They also said that the woman that ‘vouched for her famous cover story’ (they didn’t identify NEWSTime, perhaps to avoid being sued) is named Corrine S., and that she had filed for bankruptcy.

Ah-ha! We have the name of a daughter. As for the person who vouched for the cover story, that would be a reference to this:

Originally posted by Jane Doe Roottree Article:

She and another woman were hired at the same time, during a transition period while many of the secretaries that had worked under Zac Morden were already gone…
…using details that she provided to NEWSTime, their reporters were able to reach out to the other woman hired at the same time (who also remained anonymous). They successfully fact-checked the timeline of both women

So the other woman hired at the same time was Corrine S. That makes this easy to look up in the company records:

Originally posted by Company Records – 1978-1979:

1978: Beatrice Watts and Corrine Schwartz were hired.

That’s a Corrine S. If we want to confirm, we can look Corrine Schwartz up in SpiderSearch and the Butler County Times, which confirm her connection with the Anonymom case and that she is NOT Anonymom. So that means Anonymom is Beatrice Watts. Searching for her by name gives us nothing, but we now have another full name as well…

• SpiderSearch “Courtney-May Watts”

Jackpot! Apparently the page we find is too obscure to show up if we search Jane Doe Roottree, but her real name narrows things down enough.

Originally posted by Courtney-May Watts on SpiderSearch:

She’s not shy about claiming she is Jane Doe Roottree…
…THE TRUE STORY OF JANE DOE ROOTTREE COURTESY OF COURTNEY-MAY NEWTON (FORMERLY WATTS)…
…I got a degree in nursing

We also get two pictures. The wedding picture has a banner that says “Courtney-May and Danny Together Forever”. Now we have all we need to fill out the final piece of the tree:

• Guy’s potential affair partner, Anonymom, was Beatrice Watts.
• She currently works in retail (Picotee said she was a department store manager) and we got her picture from Courtney-May’s site.
• Her daughter’s birth name is Courtney-May Watts and we got two pictures of her from her site.
• Courtney-May said she got a degree in nursing and she’s wearing scrubs in the picture that her mom holds, so we can infer that she is indeed a nurse.
• Her husband is Daniel (Danny), and given her current surname, his is Newton. We also got the picture of him from her site.

And we’re finished!

Thanks for reading my guide! If you had any issues figuring out the logic of the game, I hope this was helpful. Going through the Roottreemania campaign again in detail has been an engaging experience and shows how well-crafted this game is.