'The century of foundlings'—what Cynthia found when she went looking maternal family secrets

Writer Cynthia Banham on discovering the shocking truth about her great-grandmother, reckoning with buried family secrets, and the criticisms mothers face from others and sometimes most harshly, from themselves.

Cynthia Banham grew up hearing the story of her great-grandmother, Natalina, who had supposedly been orphaned in Italy in the 19th century.

But when Cynthia became a mother herself she felt compelled to look for the real story of her maternal line, which suddenly stopped three generations back.

What she found shocked her -- a period of time when infant relinquishment was so common...