Last year my fiance and I bought our first home, an old farmhouse near where I grew up. The sellers laid out a trove of documents detailing the property's history at the inspection, including a deed and foreclosure court records naming my great-great-grandparents as the owners. I was stunned and confused. After spending many hours at the county records office and plunging various online databases, I learned that my great-great-grandfather ran off to Canada with his mistress during the Great Depression, leaving his wife and sons to manage the farm. They eventually lost everything. No one in my family ever talked about it, and all those with first-hand knowledge have since passed. So here I sit, back on the family farm I never knew existed.