We whose ancestors owned slaves want to make amends – but nations must also pay their due | Alex Renton

My family owned plantations, made profits and was compensated, but the personal atonement of my generation can only ever be a start

What do you do when you discover your family got rich through slavery? For Laura Trevelyan, the BBC correspondent whose ancestors owned more than 1,000 enslaved people in Grenada, the answer was simple. She and her family started discussions with people on the island, and now she has given 100,000 towards an economic development fund. The Trevelyans will apologise formally for the lives ruined and wasted by their ancestors' greed.

So why doesn't everyone - and there are hundreds of thousands in Britain with the same history - do a little digging and say sorry?