When I was ten years old, our teacher assigned us to research our individual family histories, as best as fifth-graders could do. I swiped one of my father's lined green ledger books, and meticulously recorded my ancestors, and their vital statistics, as I collected them from the parents, aunts and uncles, and great-aunts and great-uncles who were still living at the time. I was a late child, three of my four grandparents being dead before I had even known of them. I had many older brothers and sisters, after which there had been a substantial gap. My parents were grey...
