BY MICHAEL MILLENSON

When my siblings and I were young, we were fascinated by my father’s Uncle Byron. Handsome and confident, he drove a big, 1960s-era Chrysler Imperial, had a glamorous job — an executive at a Baltimore radio station — and radiated panache.

He also was part of a small family mystery. His father, Louis, was married three times, and Byron was raised by Wife № 3. But he was the biological child of Wife № 2, who died just a few years after his birth from an unknown cause.

Thanks to some persistent genealogical research, I recently discovered that cause: Annie Millenson had a botched abortion, and it killed her. It also destroyed her surviving family.