Family history in Australia and the World Symposium

by | Aug 8, 2018 | Uncategorised | 0 comments

Double Helix History had a fascinating and enjoyable day at the State Library of New South Wales last week taking part in the Family History in Australia and the World symposium organised by the Centre for Applied History at Macquarie University and supported by Ancestry.com.au.

State Library of New South Wales, Sydney

The event was a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the role of family history in shaping our views of ourselves and our place in history and society as well as methods, practice, and motivations. It was really helpful to meet and speak with both family and academic historians working on a range of projects and areas and the symposium allowed plenty of discussion and networking time to allow us to compare notes and experiences. We collected lots of contact details and were able to record a number of interviews with genealogists who had diverse and interesting stories to tell.

The first session gave us opportunity to reflect on “Why Family History Matters” with Stephen Foster of ANU and “The Impact of Family History” with Tanya Evans of Macquarie University, both of whom outlined the many ways in which family history generates invaluable and unique insights and conceptualisations of the past and spoke passionately about the current challenges and opportunities for academics to embrace and foster closer ties with the genealogical community. Emma Shaw from University of Newcastle presented the findings of her extensive study of Australian family historians, which demonstrated how important it is to question our assumptions about family historians, outlining the diversity of backgrounds, motivations, and purposes among the community.

Stephen Foster, Emma Shaw

Our second set of speakers brought diverse experience and expertise to broaden our understanding of family history and its importance to varying communities and the links between genealogy and wider discourses of migration, landscape, race, politics, family, and social relationships. Anne Monsur described the intersection between her academic research on Lebanese migration to Australia with the personal and familial stories of many members, explaining the many positive outcomes and increased understandings generated by her work, but also narrating some of the ethical questions that she had addressed. Indira Chowdhury of the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru discussed how exilic memories of landscape in post-Partition India have impacted on family identities and narratives of family origins and history, outlining the inherently interlinked aspects of oral history, social and political contexts, and the construction of identities. “Hero of the Day” Award had to go to Ronald Briggs, who at very(!) short notice and with someone else’s slides gave a comprehensive overview of the work of the State Library’s work in tracing indigenous ancestors, covering the full range of potential sites of archival records but also, importantly, outlining the many ways in which the Connecting Culture team provide support in navigating these resources and encouraging and ensuring access to allow individuals to rediscover links broken by legal and social discrimination to ancestral individuals, groups, cultures, and lands.

Anne Monsur, Indira Chowdhury

Rounding off the day was Double Helix History’s very own Jerome De Groot, presenting on our project and reflecting on the growth of DNA sequencing as a tool for family history and the many practical, commercial, and ethical considerations that the explosion in direct to consumer testing brings up. As ever, this led to a wide ranging and fascinating discussion among attendees, many of whom shared their experiences, successes, frustrations, and concerns. Interestingly, a large proportion of the audience raised their hands when asked if they had sent their DNA for genealogical sequencing – it was very clear that we had a highly engaged and informed audience.

Tanya Evans

 

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