I was the lone pale, blond child in the sea of dark-haired, dark-eyed grandchildren and great-grandchildren—my otherness and difference glaringly evident. Yet I had never had any doubt that I was part of the chain that reached back and back through the generations, unbroken. As I stood in my cousin Joanne’s sitting room, now knowing better, it felt as if the links of that chain were in pieces on the floor all around me.
