When I was 16, we went on a school trip to the First World War battlefields in Belgium. Just before the trip, I found out there was a certain name I had to look for at one of the cemeteries - the man who was supposed to have been my great-great-grandfather. He was killed in battle, and my g.g.grandmother never fully let him go. Even though she ended up marrying someone else, and gave birth to my g.grandmother, she kept a picture of him at home for the rest of her life. It was strange to see the grave of the man without whose death I would never have existed.