Eliana Alves Cruz and Branca Vianna grew up at a similar time in different neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro. But the two Brazilian women had very different experiences of their family history.
Cruz, 57, was always surrounded by elderly relatives, yet struggled to get them to recount stories about the men and women who had preceded them. In contrast, Vianna remembers the omnipresent figure of her grandmother’s great-grandfather, who died in 1868. There was even a painting of him hanging in the family home where Vianna, now 61, spent her holidays as a child.
