I have found so many lies and half-truths in my family history. My paternal grandmother swore that I had jet black hair when I was born and showed me a photo. What I think made it look like I had black hair was that I was in a crib and my shadow came back onto my head. Or, the fact that when she saw me, I possibly had some congealed blood and fluid in my hair.

My paternal grandmother told me that I had Scottish heritage, when the reality is that her grandmother was born in Ireland and moved to Scotland with her parents as a baby due to the Potato Famine.

My maternal grandmother's father, I was told, was Scottish, but he was born in NSW to a West Indian father and a Dorset born mother.