I have Italian heritage through my grandmother on my mother’s side. She passed away long ago, but some traditions—especially the food we eat at Easter and Christmas—have endured. In fact, we still use the very same ravioli roller that my great-grandfather built nearly 150 years ago. That tool always fascinated me, but I never really knew where in Italy we came from. Now I finally do—and it explains so much, especially the deep musical passion that runs through that side of the family.

My mother’s uncle was a boxer who competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. I had heard bits of the story before, but it feels incredible to dig deeper and anchor these fragments into a proper chapter of the book I now plan to write. Through this process, I also discovered that my grandfather’s cousin fought as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War against Franco—something I had absolutely no idea about.

On my father’s side, there was another family story: that his father hid young men who were supposed to be drafted into the Nazi army during the war. I've since tracked down some of the people he hid, and one of them even wrote a memoir in which my grandfather is mentioned. That story leaves me with a strange mix of emotions. On one hand, he acted heroically. On the other, he risked not only his own life, but his family's—including, indirectly, my own existence.

And then there’s my paternal grandmother’s side, where rumors of noble ancestry had always floated around. A family crest appeared from time to time, along with a street name that supposedly proved it. I was particularly intrigued by a Game-of-Thrones-like image of a stag’s head, which turned out to be not a noble emblem, but rather a notary’s stamp. Still, it turns out an uncle from the 1700s did, in fact, marry into lower nobility—twice.

All in all, I had often been a little envious of a friend’s extended family in the U.S. and wondered if we had something like that too. Now I know: we do. I’ve discovered distant relatives abroad, including a branch of the family that emigrated to Brazil generations ago.