Sharing Histories
We promote an awareness of history and heritage throughout society via our consultancy projects and through other means, and we support Aboriginal people to tell their stories in their own ways.
Historian Paul Irish works with Aboriginal community researchers from the La Perouse based Gujaga Foundation to develop content for family and community history projects. A recent example is the Kamay (Botany Bay) section of the 2020 National Museum of Australia's Endeavour Voyage exhibition. Other projects include the 2015 NSW History Fellowship exhibition This Is Where They Travelled: The Aboriginal People of Coastal Sydney, which profiles the lives of 10 remarkable Aboriginal people who lived between the 1790s and 1940s around coastal Sydney.
Historian Michael Bennett developed the website Pathfinders: The History of NSW Aboriginal Trackers in 2016 to promote the remarkable stories of the Aboriginal men and women who worked for the NSW Police as trackers between 1863 and 1972. Michael developed these stories into the 2020 book Pathfinders, which has been followed up by a series of public talks.
Historian Paul Irish is the author of the 2017 book Hidden In Plain View: The Aboriginal people of Coastal Sydney, which was the winner of the NSW Community and Regional History Prize at the 2018 NSW Premiers History Awards, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Prime Minister's Literary Awards. He has also developed an Aboriginal history overview for the Cooks River and published on a range of other topics. Paul also delivers public talks and guest lectures for university students.
Historians Paul Irish and Michael Bennett and Royal Australian Historical Society created Finding Your Ancestors: Researching Aboriginal Family History in NSW in 2020 to help Aboriginal people get started with family history research. It features a website with a series of introductory videos, and in 2020 and 2021 a series of monthly online Q&A sessions delivered with guest Aboriginal librarians and community researchers .
