So why rhythmic gymnastics?

 I am writing this purely for the fun of it. I have forgotten the joy of writing, and while my family history findings gave me some of it back for a little bit, I am finding that on-the-whole, I am struggling with writing. I seem to be dodging the very same opportunities to hash an opinion out that I used to love, and so oerhaps this is a passion-bridging exercise by talking about a passion?

But yes, for those who follow me on my now private socials, many have noticed I have a seemingly inexplicable fondness for rhythmic gymnastics. I don't like sport in general, and my version of hell is being stuck in a sports bar that does not have live music playing in the next room that I can escape to. I missed the Australian "sporting gene". I am also clumsy as, and perhaps some of my disdain for sports overall comes from my complete inability in all of them despite the fact that I actually have an ideal build for a lot of sports (between my height, my shoulders, and my natural muscle tone). But when it comes to rhythmic gymnastics, I seem to be all in, and folks go "but why?"

Rhythmic gymnastics is such a fringe sport in Australia. Hell, all gymnastics is, and professional Artistic Gymnasts have a hard time gaining a living wage out of it and finding sponsorship to cover their competition schedules. And despite having world champion tumblers and trampolinists, they barely get a look in either. But rhythmic is different - in many of the Slavic countries for example, and Western Asian countries, it is actually the dominant form of gymnastics with their stars celebrated. Here, no. 

I remember a blip in time - 1994 to be precise - where that wasn't the case. Australian rhythmic gymnast Kasumi Takahashi caused a national fever when she managed a clean sweep of gold medals at the Commonwealth Games. Takahashi was brilliant - for her time, she was an incredibly skilled athlete, and so compelling that many Australian eyes were drawn to it for the first time. It didn't last though. Not long after, Takahashi started being the victim of good old-fashioned Australian racism due to her name and Japanese birthplace, and Takahashi herself was forced into retirement a few years later due to stress fractures in her spine. Injuries which, given what the sport was then with its focus on extreme flexibility, not uncommon sadly, and cost many a young career. Indeed, these requirements only became a former part of the sport in 2010.

But yeah, anyway, fun fact: I did rhythmic gymnastics for 6 months when I was 11 years old. I had quit ballet, which I had been doing since I was 4, and cut all my hair off in one of my many early shows of feminist rebellion, and had expressed to mum that I wanted to do gymnastics. I meant Artistic Gymnastics, but my primary school was offering some after school rhythmic classes, and mum pushed me towards them as she loved the sport and considered it more feminine. Unfortunately though, when that six months was up, there was not an awful lot on offer in Canberra when it came to rhythmic gymnastics clubs, and so I got my wish to do Artistic Gymnastics and enrolled at a club in Belconnen.

Did I miss rhythmic then? I can't actually say. I can say that, generally speaking, I was terrible at artistic gymnastics. When I quit that at age 15, I had only reached level 5, and for the time, my height and build were totally inappropriate for the sport. It's a bit wonderful looking at the sport now because there are actually women who are built like me competing at the highest levels. Back then, the top gymnasts were all still just children, and usually children who had been abused by their regimes, and systemically underfed to keep them as lithe as possible. Despite being terrible at the sport though, I often used to ride my bike down to the AIS to watch the gymnasts train, and I loved doing this. On occasion, you would catch rhythmic gymnasts training too, and I thought they were wonderful and admirable. 

But the sport itself didn't capture my imagination. You look at the sport of the late-90s and early-2000s, and it appears to be just a series of dance movements and grotesque contortions performed while waving whatever apparatus they were working with at the time. That's actually exactly what I think, for example, when I watch the routines of Putin's mistress Alina Kabaeva. For her time, yes, she was excellent. But her routines are exactly as I mentioned above, and actually, compared to what we see now, almost look like an entirely different sport.

                                Kabaeva at Athens Olympics

How then did I get back into it? Well, it was the Tokyo Olympics that grabbed my attention. We were all locked up with nothing to do, and suddenly there I was, gripped by the rhythmic gymnastics qualifications, and then its incredibly controversial final. The sport I dismissed as "forced femininity" as a child, and then as a "bit bizarre" as a young adult, had completely transformed. In its place was this highly skilled, and incredibly difficult, display which also allowed for music with lyrics (something else it didn't have back then). Some even used metal music in their routines! Competitors were using their feet to throw hoops and ribbons, and you couldn't blink while watching it because if you did, you'd miss a difficulty element. It was incredible.

                Anastasiia Salos at Tokyo doing hoop - a favourite routine of mine

And yes, the fact that the final was controversial made it even more compelling to me. To give a brief overview, the Russians went in completely expecting to with the gold with their lead competitor, Dina Averina. They were pipped at the post though by Israeli gymnast Linoy Ashram who, via the aparatus difficulty she had packed in her routine, managed to outscore Averina despite an apparatus drop during Ashram's ribbon routine. Bedlam followed. Russia challenged the score of Averina's ribbon routine on the spot, and failed. They then issued a complaint about the judging process, and the findings were that no, there hadn't been bias, and the judging was both compliant and fair. 

Because the sport was "new" to me, and I was trying to figure out how everything panned out, I cannot tell you how many times I watched that final in a bid to grasp how it had all unfolded. At the end though, it was all quite simple. In the final, Averina had missed one valuable difficulty element - a catch in the ball routine with her knees while performing a roll under the flight path - which she had successfully performed in the qualification round, and which had cost her just enough decimal points to land in silver position. Ashram, meanwhile, had crammed her routines with difficulty elements and had successfully performed most of them, to the point of where one drop in the ribbon routine was inconsequential on her placing. This sport was so intricate and compelling that something as small as this could make all the difference, and I was captivated from that point onwards.

                                The controversial Tokyo final

But something else also captivated me. The sport had grown more diverse, and was less "girlie", for want of a better term. Remember, as I kid, I had been pushed towards it due to its perceived femininity in comparison to WAG, and therefore I had partly resisted this. What I was now seeing though was a women's sport that showed an abundance of creativity, difficulty and athleticism. It was an absolute smorgasbord for the eyes. And in this form, it appealed to me greatly. 

What's more, the more competitions I caught, the more diversity I saw. When it came to race, I was seeing South American and Middle Eastern gymnasts chomping at the heels of the dominant European competitors. When it came to body type, while some countries did seem to prefer sticking to the tall waif-types of yesterday, others had embraced body diversity. Bulgaria, for example, who is a dominant force in the sport had a team which consisted of great diversity in height and build, and every single one of them had been worked with to build routines that worked with, rather than against, this. 

As well as metal music in routines, and other such things, another aspect I noticed was the diverse ways gymnasts were working the apparati. Take, for example, the below ribbon routine by my very favourite (now retired) gymnast, Boryana Kaleyn. I loved this routine because ribbon has traditionally been very flowy and "pretty", and Kaleyn instead turned it into a display of strength by using it to tell the story of a folk warrior:

If that's not enough, perhaps check out this incredible clubs routine by Wang Zilu at the Paris Olympics. Through using cultural elements, she too managed to show clubs in a completely different way, that was equally strong. The video from the Olympics itself that I could find was crap, but I found one from a world cup, or alternately, watch the entire Paris finals on YouTube:

In short, the sport has changed so much. And those changes have been incredible. What I am seeing now is an intricate, and epic sport, where trained bodies are performing the impossible, and pushing new frontiers. And so I sit there, for hours, watching the European, the Asian, and the World Championships. I look at which other countries are challenging the old dynamics and where the next generation of top gymnast may come from. And as a sport loather, I am enthralled.

What else has changed? Well, for starters, I know that men also do rhythmic gymnastics. Japan has an entire men's competition using different apparatuses, and incorporating acrobatic elements which are not a part of mainstream RG. Here's a men's clubs routine from Japan, and it is extraordinary:

In countries like Spain, men also do Rhythmic Gymnastics, though it is more inline with the main competition. To see these men though, really makes me hope that the men's competition does take off and get incorporated into the mainstream world comps, because can we talk about this man's butterfly leap sequence?!

So anyway, that's it. That is why you suddenly see rhythmic gymnastics content making its way into my feed. It is an extraordinary sport, full of art, athleticism, strength, and in my humble opinion, if you are not watching it, you are missing out. I am so glad that it has evolved over time, and is pushing new boundaries. I will say, the group competition still bamboozles me so it's the individual comps that I consume at ridiculous rates, but who knows - maybe one day, I will also understand group too? But yes, thank you, rhythmic gymnastics, for giving me a sport I can actually understand and be interested in. And to my favourite competitors, you are totally incredible.

PS Here's a weird historic twist, incidentally. It turns out that I have a distant cousin who is a rhythmic gymnast, and though living in Canada, she represented Sri Lanka on the world stage because that was where her parents were born. Had I not done family research, I would not have known this fact. So to Anna-Marie Quint Ondaatje, you are a legend!

Permimenopausal Blak woman with severe, life-long, body dysmorphia posts photos of her in bathers on the socials, gets back love.

 This blog post is going to do what it says on the tin, with added context. I am writing it because, via an overwhelming positive reaction to some photos I took of myself enjoying the R&R at Wai Ariki Thermal Baths in Rotorua, I have actually had to stop and reflect, not just on why I was able to post such photos in the first place, but what the positive reaction to these shots has meant to me, and why that needs unpacking.

I have suffered from crippling body dysmorphia my entire life. It started when I was very young. In fact, I think if I were to go back over the photo albums, I would struggle to find any photos of me in bathers, or anything which shows any skin at all, from about 7 years old onwards. I have written this before on here, but to re-contextualise, as a very young child, I was continually body-shamed. I cannot remember the first time someone pointed out to me that I was "fat" or "solid", but I know that it happened before I turned ten. I was growing into a tall and broad-shouldered build with natural tone, and would be often compared to my younger sister who was smaller and slighter in build. She would be called "skinny and miserable" whereas I always was told I needed to lose a few kilos.

This criticism continued into my teen years. I am rehashing here so for those who have already read this before, apologies and skip ahead beyond the next two paragraphs. In year 8, I was told by two boys in my class that a vote had been held, and I had been voted the "ugliest girl" in the class. I was called fat many times until I was 16 when, in a weird sort of turn of events, I got my first boyfriend and via him, I had heard that another girl in my year who was dating his friend had said that the thought I was "pretty", but that there was just "something about me" that she didn't like or get. I don't think she knows just how much that comment meant to me. Even though she had judged my personality without cause, she had also been the first person to comment positively and without equivocation on my appearance.

This continued. I had been told I needed to lose weight in order to do gymnastics, so I eventually dropped it. I described myself as having "battleship hips" when I was 17 when, looking at pictures of myself right now, I know I am quite slim-hipped. Family feedback on my appearance was always negative, and when I gained weight due to developing severe depression in my late 20s while being in a toxic and abusive relationship, their feedback was utterly brutal. I remember one sibling having the hide to tell me that their criticism of my weight gain had "inspired" me to do something about it, and I think they were a little shocked to be informed that it sent me further down the well to the point where I even pondered self-harm. Getting out of that relationship meant that my mental health improved, and so my weight dropped to what I would call my "normal" - I am 172cm tall, and between a size 10 and 12. 

I maintained that size throughout my 30s with little effort. However, in a real turn up for the books, myself and Ruby Hamad ended up enduring a pile-on by "body positivity activists" who claimed that a remark by me (which was actually just an honest comment on online hate, and unpacking how it operates intersectionally for women of colour) threw fat women under the bus and as we were both "skinny", it was particularly harmful. Of course, these activists didn't unpack the actual comment, nor did they engage with either of our cultural backgrounds and journeys through body dysmorphia (which we both had stuggled with). It was a surface level outrage fest and though I acknowledge the right to feel pain in this world that is so unkind to women based on our appearances, I don't think nearly cancelling two women of colour without exploring actual context, or knowing their own journeys through dysmorphia, is the way to go about it.

There's an additional thing - I think this is why I enjoyed loads of sex in my late-teens and also in my 30s. Partly, it was because the act is simply fun. Partly though, it was because it gave me freedom from my dysmophia. Experiencing this continuously criticised (by myself, and by others) body in a pleasurable way was incredibly liberating. So too was going to day spas in Europe where everyone is naked. You get the freedom to experience your body as simply functional in this circumstance, with everyone having a different one, and that being OK.

ANYWAY, I am repeating. My second big battle with depression and therefore weight gain came during the lockdowns. As well as the many problems with the VicGov approach (policing a health crisis), I have never really properly acknowledged how triggering being forced to stay at home was for me. It was like I was back in that abusive relationship of my late-20s, but this time, it was with the government. Photo evidence proves my gain then - the photos of when I was a Greens candidate were taken when I was carrying 25kgs more than I am now, by a photographer who tried to spin it positively by telling me the weight gain had "taken years off (my) face". Like before, when the lockdowns ended, my mental health improved, and because my brain wasn't having to work so hard to just cope, my metabolism kicked back in and here I am again, at my "normal" size.

Of course, that has never stopped the dysmorphia. I have improved, and am much closer to self-acceptance than I have even been, but perimenopause has added a variable. Now, I'm size 10 to 12, but I ache more often, I pluck stray hairs more often, I bleed more often or not at all, etc. People keep regurgitating that this change tends to lead to weight gain for women, and therefore there's this cloud of ridiculous paranoia hanging around my head, telling me I am going to have to shift 25kgs again soon, and for the third time in my life. It's messing with me. And simply accepting myself if I do get bigger is a huge ask for someone with three bulging discs - as well as being not happy in my body, I also risk putting further strain on injuries I live with every day. Anyway...

I don't know what prompted me to post my photos at Wai Ariki. I think I wanted to show myself having a bit of R&R in what is one of the most incredible landscapes I have ever been to. I think I was also trying to liberate myself from my own dysmorphia. I see people post photos of themselves swimming in their bathers all the time, and in a way, I have been envious that they are so present in their own bodies. I was not expecting the positive reaction I did get.

I mean, as well as over 100 likes on Facebook, people were stating that I looked "hot", and one person even cheekily referred to one photo as a "thirst trap" 😂. That was definitely not the intention of my posting it, but it was bloody nice to see that it could be read as such. In particular though, folks commented on my looking relaxed. That, in itself, was a massive achievement. I mean, not only am I a 47yo Blak woman with body dysmorphia, but I also went bathing not giving a shit about my leg and armpit hair. So there you have it. One simple act of posting pics got read in positive ways I had never intended, and also that I had never experienced, and thus, I am so grateful to all who interacted with these photos (reposted below) positively.

Body dysmorphia is a bitch, and my solidarity with all who, like me, battle it. May we get to a day where we can simply "be".

We lost in Melbourne

 I am trying to think how I can process my personal grief and anger at what transpired during yesterday's White Nationalist parade. And I do feel both because I am an old war horse around the traps, I have seen a number of successful anti-fascist actions in my time, and yesterday wasn't one of them. It was devastating.

However we, as the Left, and as those who stand against racism and fascism, and for multiculturalism, justice and equality, need to start with being honest with ourselves. Stating that we were vastly outnumbered is inaccurate. The numbers were roughly equal. Indeed, they were perhaps slightly in our favour. Yet the white nationalists still somehow got to goose-step themselves up Swanston and Bourke Streets to then have a rousing bunch of speeches with NSN leader Tom Sewell welcomed to the stage with open arms. That shouldn't have happened. It really, bloody, shouldn't have happened.

What did I observe then? Well, for starters, I got to the Library as the end of the crowd was joining the march down Swanston. I was late and missed all the speeches. I then sought to move through the crowd to the front like the seasoned protest navigator I am. The front was at Little Collins Street, so that's a good three city blocks (or six, depending on your counting and cartography preferences). That's roughly 5000+. At the Collins St intersection, those who had made their way from the Federation Square counter action to the Palestine rally were waiting. Some of these people had already been brutalised and were shaken, so were so thankful to see the crowd. A wall of police, including mounties and fully suited PORT officers blocked us off from the white nationalists.

Aerial photography shows that the number of nationalists was roughly similar in size to us. Certainly, they did not "vastly outnumber us", as I have seen some claim. Given the size of our crowd, and what forms "direct action" can take, what I believe should have happened next was that we held Swanston Street by locking in, sitting down, and refusing to give them passage. A blockade as a form of counteraction can be incredibly effective, particularly if you have a big group of people making this collective statement, AND the tactic is well-communicated so those in attendance know and are pulling together. If they want confrontation, we are waiting for them, and it's on our terms on our streets.

What our side did instead was this:

1. Split off to counteract some fascist breakaway groups in side streets - this caused confusion with many in the larger group unaware of what was going on;

2. Gave conflicting messages - at one point, half the megaphones were yelling to go to Parliament, while the other half were yelling to go to the Library. Attendees had NFI which way to go. With friends, I opted for towards Parliament, and literally all this achieved was us all getting trapped by more police on Russell, watching the nationalists walk up Bourke;

3. Fragment the group - as mentioned above, with bits of the anti-racism group getting broken off every which way, we ended up with smaller groups of some very vulnerable people. They will always "vastly outnumber us" if we are fragmented enough to be pockets of action, rather than a cohesive collective. In at least one instance I know of, a young woman was assaulted by NSN thugs while alone and trying to find her way to the crowd;

4. Clear the path - with these little groups breaking off, any chance of mass "you shall not pass" statements captured by aerial media photography were dashed. Because everyone was off in small pockets everywhere, Swanston Street again became fair game, and the white nationalists then marched up there, and then up Bourke, to land at parliament and cheer their Nazi speeches.

I have been to many anti-fascist rallies over the decades, but never have I felt as individually unsafe as I did yesterday. Indeed, myself, a trans woman, and two lesbians ended up dashing down two laneways, and across Bourke between clumps of "proud Aussies" from Russell Street in an attempt to find a larger, and safer, collective. As a fellow old war horse pointed out to me, at previous antifa and anti-racism actions, because the collective held the line, communicated the tactics, and didn't budge until the outnumbered Nazis were on their way home, "you'll always lose in Melbourne" became a popular victory chant. Well, the Nazis didn't lose in Melbourne yesterday. The streets were theirs, and due to our own disorganisation, miscommunication, and failure to protect the collective, it was partly our fault.

To hear this all culminated in a savage attack on Camp Sovereignty has further infuriated me. Nazis were so emboldened, they went to a sacred site, and bashed Blak women. This should NEVER have happened.

We simply cannot allow such an avoidable mess to happen on our streets again. If those sitting comfy on their couches at home, watching this unfold, really do care, I suggest you get off your arses, join the action, and make "never again" truly happen. To leftist organisers, I say know your tactics, assess your situation and numbers, make a collective decision, communicate it to all other organisers, and then stick to it. Don't lead vulnerable people off into potentially dangerous situations because you don't know what you're doing, and DO NOT CEDE GROUND. To those who were there - try not to be too disheartened. It was a fucken awful day, but we can turn this around.

Finally, I am putting my money where my big mouth is. If people want me, and reckon I can help, I am available to do so. As an Arrernte woman, I never want to see us lose in Melbourne again.

UPDATE: I have been sent video footage of the white nationalist gathering which presents a different view to the aerial I had previously seen. This footage indicates that their crowd numbers were bigger than I had seen. Regardless of size though, my points stand with regards to what unfolded on our side.

Lorna - Family history update

 It's a good year and a half into this family history research, yet there is something that is still bothering me somewhat - my grandmother Lorna remains a bit of a mystery to me. 

I mean, I now know why she had an olive complexion - it came from her Burgher heritage. But I don't know what she herself knew of this heritage, if she knew anything at all. I know why it was that she also seemed to have some sort of financial independence - she inherited this from her mother and her grandparents. But I also find it odd that she always told me she was an only child when she wasn't - she had a half-brother and I never met him. I also haven't met his family, and I have no idea why such an estrangement happened between these two siblings. Perhaps it was a jealousy on nanna's behalf that her father went on to make another family following her parents' divorce. Either way, if Ray's descendants ever read this, I would love to meet you. I just haven't known where to start.

I know nanna was brought up mainly by her nanna, and her nanna was, in turn, brought up by her grandmother. But I cannot find any stories about this, and while I remember my nanna having a particular fondness for me, I don't really recall her as a nurturer.

I've thought maybe nanna rebelled against her parents by having a steady husband who was also her co-conspirator, as well as having four children. But apart from endless proof that my grandparents did love each other very much, I cannot find any evidence nanna was happy as a housewife. The opposite seems true, actually. Nanna was deeply restless, she did not stay home during the day keeping house, and preferred instead to head to the pubs for a few drinks and some socialising. Indeed, I feel pretty cruel about this nowadays but as kids, I, and all her other grandkids, used to make fun of nanna's drinking problem because we didn't know better. Both nanna's parents liked their "good times", but nanna seemed to always have a drinking problem and this problem went into destructive depths when my grandfather died. It did not help her deterioration in later life.

There are other mysteries though. I have previously mentioned her cousin, Edna Ogden, before, and how my mother, uncles and aunty were unaware that this woman was actually nanna's cousin. It turns out this has been a running theme. I have unearthed a variety of nanna's cousins, mentioned them to my maternal generational elders, and they consistently remember these people while being unaware that they were actually relations. 

I wonder if this was due to estrangement. Certainly a trait I loathe in my family that I have witnessed (and been the victim of) many times is the tendency to just cut people off without explanation. Sometimes I still cry about the times this has happened to me. Treating others as if they are disposable is a pattern, and one that I find both devastating and cowardly, yet it has apparently been happening for generations. Why? And can it stop?

I ask the last bit because looking into this trend has probably given me some answers as to why I have had to rebuild so much knowledge when looking into nanna's ancestry. As her ancestry grew more and more fascinating, it highlighted to me how many stories our family had lost. I had to wonder if relationships had been better nurtured in previous generations whether these stories would have stayed alive. And to be honest, I think they would have. So how do we change this for the next generations when people still seem pretty keen on this estrangement pattern?

Anyway, I am going to leave that there. I hope one day I do understand Lorna more, and everyone else while I am at it. 

Why I don't have public social media profiles anymore

 Perhaps this headline is inaccurate. I do have one public social media account - an instagram that I barely use. I had intended on populating it, but the longer it has existed, and the more Instagram pesters me via notifications regarding their features, the less likely I have become to actually use it. I don't see this changing.

It goes like this: I used to have public Facebook, and microblogging via Twitter. I don't now. This has led to many folks trying to access my personal Facebook and Instagram accounts with little luck. In a more innocent time, I may have accepted their friend requests, but nowadays, not so much. It's nothing against them, it's more the desire for peace and sanctuary.

For me, deleting my Twitter account came to a head nearly three years ago. I was on holiday, for the first time in ages, and following six lockdowns, and I found myself sitting in the Arctic Circle with the aurora going on over my head, stressing about something playing out on that platform. It was actually making me physically ill - because of my stress, I was being hit by waves of nausea and panic. So I signed out of the account then and there, deleted the app, and never signed in again. 

The person who caused this trigger event was not responsible for me leaving the platform. They were simply an aggrieved person acting out in what was a long list of Twitter events. Twitter lent itself to performative callout culture being mistaken as "taking action". I myself had contributed to that on many occasions. Yet the problem was, during the six lockdowns in Melbourne, it also became a bit of an outside lifeline for me. Isolated from the world, and feeling like I was in an abusive relationship with the state government, I (like many others) turned to the platforms to maintain connection. This connection was often superficial, and the longer it went on, the less it did to stop my descent into deep depression such as I had not experienced for fifteen years. I was not in a good spot at all, but it took for me to be somewhere else trying to enjoy life to finally realise this and take action. 

There's an additional part to this. At roughly the same time, I became a political candidate. What's more, despite my having little chance of winning in the safe seat I ran in as an actual local, I was targeted by a bunch of hacks who were seemingly unaware of their latent racism. As such, my public social media spaces became a place where my words were twisted for memes, and my mental health was of no great importance to those looking to score points in their peanut gallery. What started as an action to promote democracy in my local area turned into a time period where suicide ideation became a reality. What's more, I was completely unequipped to deal with my own mental health issues, so they consumed me, and those close to me. When the election was finally over, and I had the opportunity to resume a private life, I took it.

Social media was responsible for me having a side gig as a commentator in the first place, but it is not going to be a part of my future. The longer I was on it, and the more I saw those of us who are not white cis men being targeted for being uppity enough to take back some space, the more futile I felt it was. My words have the same right to be out there without personal harassment as the words of those white dudes, existing in the spaces to be considered by the readers. I, and any other commentator from a similarly marginalised perspective, should not have to put up with the shit we do for simply existing.

So yes, I will not be returning to public social media any time soon, though I continue to write, and commentate. I will leave that for those who still have the will for it and get something out of it. For those still interested in what I have to say, check out my Linktree for updated article listings. Also, keep an eye out - ideas are brewing and all this family history research I have been doing potentially serves another purpose. 

Peace, and for those still holding on in those toxic online spaces, I salute you. You are made from tougher stuff than I.

The Marigold - family history series

 Today, I believe I solved a mystery that was 150 years old. It's one that I have referred to before - my maternal grandmother's lines and how, while her paternal line just unfolded before me with ease and I watched as I became the descendant of a brown dude who was a revolutionary, her maternal line just brickwalled.

I am no closer when it comes to her maternal grandfather, John McVeigh. I still believe I am in the ballpark with my idea that we have some misspelt surnames there, and potentially a couple of convicts, but I cannot be sure.

Eliza Louisa Hibbert though, I am now reasonably certain I have solved. For fans of Downton Abbey, it's a "Marigold" story. And probably one that, if I wasn't so stubborn while also driven by accuracy, I may not have solved.

Eliza was my first clue that, when encountering relations on Ancestry, you need to question everything. If things don't fit, people will shoehorn stuff in, mainly in the hope they can construct their family trees. 

Eliza was very shoehorned, but I guess it was understandable why she was. According to her marriage and death certificates, her parents were Joseph Hibbert and Eliza Sarah Kipps. They had a number of children, including a daughter named "Louisa Elizabeth", and Eliza Sarah actually gave birth to her final child when she was 47 (terrifying thought to me at 47 right now!). People had misidentified Louisa as Eliza Louisa yet when it came to the records, it didn't fit. This woman was 9 years older than Eliza's husband John, yet marriage certificates and cemetery records showed her being seven years younger than him. Further digging showed that Louisa married a man named George Podesta, and that she died in 1912. 

Yet despite what Eliza Louisa's marriage and death certificates stated, no birth certificate existed for her. What's more, she does not appear on her named mother's death certificate. She does appear on her named father's death certificate, but as "Louisa Eliza" and with an illegible age. Had she been born to Eliza Sarah and Joseph, Eliza Sarah would have been 45 - not impossible, particularly considering the one younger brother, but certainly not usual.

                                {segment - Joseph Hibbert death cert}
 

When Eliza Louisa died, it was June 1947 and she was listed as being 74 years old. Her beloved husband John followed her to the grave a mere couple of weeks later. She was fondly remembered by my nanna Lorna as being a warm woman, who was like a mother rather than a grandmother to her because Avis was out making her boots. Nanna actually lived with her grandparents and her mother until she married at 18. Eliza Louisa was a steadying influence in a house of rather strong-willed individuals.

Therefore if she had a birth certificate, it would have indicated that she was born in 1872 or 73. Eliza Sarah did not give birth in that year. She did, however, have two daughters who would have been old enough then to have children - Sarah Avis (18yo), and Louisa Elizabeth (16yo).

Perhaps I should have taken closer notice of Joseph Hibbert's death certificate, because the first clue was there. But then again, I don't know that I would have got it from the listed "Louisa Eliza".

The answer appears to be this: according to the records, on the 10th of August, 1872, Sarah Avis Hibbert gave birth to a daughter named "Louisa Eliza Londriggan" in Panton Hill, Victoria. Her mother, Eliza Sarah, was listed as the witness. The father was a man listed as "Edmond Londriggan", who was a 28 year old brickmaker from Ireland. Allowing for misspellings and so forth, this man does not appear to exist - there are no records for him in Victoria beyond this birth certificate, and I haven't found him on passenger lists for migration, nor cemetery records. He doesn't seem to exist elsewhere in Australia either - I located an "Edmund Longrigan" in a NSW cemetery, but he was too young. Sarah Avis was listed as married to this man, and carrying his surname too, yet no marriage record exists. Victoria was the best record-keeping state in the country. 

When it comes to Sarah Avis' death certificate though (1890), no daughter named Louisa Eliza Londriggan is listed, and nor is a first husband named Edmond. She is, however, shown as having married firstly, a man named William Townsend to whom she had two children (both did not survive infancy), and then secondly, to a man named Robert Moyes to whom she had a son named Francis. On her marriage certificate to Townsend (who was more than twice her age), she was listed as a "spinster", rather than a widow or divorcee, thus making her stated marriage to Londriggan prior unlikely.

I can, therefore, only come to the conclusion that "Louisa Eliza Londriggan" is my second great-grandmother Eliza Louisa Hibbert. Louisa Eliza would have been exactly 74 years old in June 1947 when Eliza Louisa died. I believe Sarah's parents brought up Eliza Louisa as their own, thus hiding Sarah's "illegitimate" child in their already huge brood, and freeing her up to marry at the age of 21 without the stigma or shame society put on unwed mothers at the time. I also believe that in "adopting" Eliza Louisa, they switched her name order around as there was already a daughter named Louisa in the family. Finally, they gave her their surname, and that was the "maiden name" she carried to her grave.

Perhaps if there are living descendants of Francis Moye who test on Ancestry, I will be able to confirm all this. As it stands though, the dates are right, and this explains the absence from both Sarah and Eliza Sarah's death certificates, but the presence on Joseph's. It explains the unfindable "father". It also explains why I do match up genetically with other descendants of Eliza Sarah and Joseph - I am of that flock, but just a further generation along than what our family knew.

I will never know if Eliza Louisa knew any of this. I hope she did, but regardless, if she didn't, I am glad that she still grew up with her family. And she went on to create and nuture a family of her own, to which, I am proud to now know and be a part of.

Around the world with the Wallers

 Since I have returned from the Netherlands, I have been watching back-to-back episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? on SBS's On Demand. It's a rather peculiar thing to do, but has been spurred by watching other people go through their journeys and seeing what it is that I may have missed.

To recap, my holiday to the Netherlands was spurred not only from severe burnout and lingering background depression, but also my discovery that I am the 5th great-granddaughter of Dutch-Burgher revolutionary Pieter Quint Ondaatje. There was definite and defiant joy at finding out that I had such an incredible political figure in the mix there, but also that the "white side" of my family ended up not being terribly white at all. His grandson, James George Waller, who to me is 3rd great-grandfather, is the one who migrated here, and though his own migration trip remains a mystery, his line and parentage is not. Indeed, once I uncovered it, this was the most complete line I had, and it turns out that the one migrant-of-colour I have on my maternal side of the family was the only person who came here who had any money behind him at all. The rest were very working class, and two lines lost everything in the Sacramento shipwreck.

What has struck me watching all these episodes though is while I may have all the documents linking my descent from Quint and Christina Hoovenaar, and while I may have seen a great many places associated with him while in the Netherlands, I am missing two links. I don't know much about their daughter Hermina Wilhelmina, why she stayed in the colonies long enough to meet and marry British ship-builder James Waller, and what her life was link as an educated woman-of-colour sailing the world. I also don't know much about James George Waller, why it was that he chose Australia when he had sisters who went to Canada and Jamaica, and what his life was like. He was a man of colour with means in the early days of Melbourne, and he was clearly adored by his children. He showed progressive values and I am trying to ascertain if he, like four generations before him, was also a member of the Freemasons. Conversely, he also suffered hardship - his wife, Caroline Hodges from Bristol, appears to have died of alcohol-related illness. And I do wonder how his non-white heritage played out for him, particularly in the later part of his life where Australia was actively legislating for an end to non-white migration.

But watching these episodes of others has highlighted the mysteries I still need to solve. As well as the lives of Hermina, then James George, that is. I, for example, need to know what it is that my great-great-grandmother Eliza Louisa Hibbert does not have a birth certificate. I need to know whether I am right about her husband John McVeigh's parents in Sydney, and need to know whether they were convict descent (seems likely - they were Irish descent and not wealthy) or whether I have barked up the wrong tree here. I have, after all, had to run with the assumption that the surname has changed spelling (or was misspelt due to illiterate forbears) in order to find records that match dates and places. Staying with the Irish, I need to know John Henry Robinson's story beyond him being born in Dublin. I have names for parents, but being very common Irish names (John Robinson and Mary Farrell), that doesn't narrow it down. A man that adored by his family cannot have simply appeared from nowhere. The biggest mystery of all though remains on dad's side: did Frank Gillen know he fathered my great-grandmother Mary, and how did he come to do so (beyond the obvious)? How, also, did this influence his research with Baldwin Spencer on the Arrernte? 

Part of me sort of hopes SBS sees me here, and decides they want me on this show so they can unpack some of these stories. Truth is, I have spent a fortune on government records because sloppy research, and shoehorning records on Ancestry, had led to distant relations making mistakes that I had to correct. But I don't have the additional money to dig in the above any further. Particularly given Irish records can be precarious due to their history of colonisation by the English. I cannot help but feel that many co-descendants, due to their whiteness, have stopped at the ethnicity estimates. I don't understand their lack of curiosity with regards to the actual people involved, because the minute you drill down, you work out the ethnicity estimates mean little. But perhaps they were simply looking for validation of their identity, and as someone who has been "othered" my entire life, I did not need that validation. I know who I am.

If people do take on these journeys, my advice is to take everything on Ancestry with a grain of salt. The presence of names and records can be overwhelming, but they are only really as good as the people who have been on the system before you. You need the certificates, and you need the stories. The historical echoes lie in those stories, and not the faulty ethnicity estimates. 

Revisiting a major problem I have with the Buffyverse

 I think I have figured this blog out: it will live again, but it must live in ways that I can enjoy it. Whether it's me ruminating on my family research finds and the socio-political and historical significance of them, or it's me throwing down some random thing about pop culture, or it's a post bagging out the colony - I need to be able to enjoy writing again. And this is going to be a place where I do just this. Hope the two readers I have enjoy it too.

I have been rewatching Buffy and Angel again, and two things have brought this on. The first was the untimely death of Michelle Trachtenberg, who played Dawn Summers. The second was the announcement that a reboot series was on its way, and that it would include Sarah Michelle Gellar, while series originator Joss Whedon would not be included. Whedon being elsewhere is not surprising - in the intervening years, just how problematic the dude was with those he worked with has been documented in a number of places, and I will barely delve into that here. The extent of the complaints are easily findable. My curiousity though of how this show will grow what existed before it led me back to revisiting what actually did happen before. 

Here's a basic - both series have not aged well. I am not terribly surprised. For me, they were more of an enjoyable and female-centric romp rather than the cutting-edge feminism they were often touted as. They broke ground by taking a blonde-bimbo prototype character and instead placing her as the protector of the world, they featured the first prime time lesbian kiss, and at least in Buffy, men were in supporting roles. However, I had problems with certain things back then. For starters, why did almost every dude Buffy have sex with turn evil after the act (except for the boring one we all hated), if he wasn't already evil? What sort of purity self-flagellation was that? And the show is littered with ableist slurs, Buffy is kind of racist at times (assuming Robin Wood was from "the hood", for example), and for some bizarre reason, the only thing that could send Spike on a redemptive path was a rape attempt, even though the bloke had been redeeming somewhat for two seasons prior. Also, what the fuck was Xander, in general?

My biggest problem though always related to Cordelia. I was not surprised when, only a couple of years ago, Charisma Carpenter went public about her experiences being written out of the series, because way back then, her trajectory was just so incredibly problematic. They started with a vapid rich bitch, set about redeeming her over the years so she became a warrior in her own right, then just threw her out. And why? Well, essentially because the woman behind the character had the hide to be pregnant. 

It was truly fucked. Why? Because as a plot device, Cordelia had already managed to be impregnated twice (once in her head), via demons trying to spawn. Her body was up-for-grabs as far as pregnancy went, as long as they could control the narrative. The femaleness of it was exploitable as an incubator of life, provided that life was created in a non-consensual manner, and needed to be destroyed for the good of the world.

And so, when Charisma Carpenter fell pregnant, so it seemed the showrunner set about punishing her for doing so, by turning her own pregnancy into an evil thing, set in motion by a sordid act, that needed to be destroyed for the good of the world. What's more, it appeared to be greatly excused for what it was by the Buffyverse, for some "greater good" that was the maintenance of Whedon's legendary status. As I watched it unfold, it made my skin crawl, and as I found out over the years that my suspicions about Cordelia's arc then exit started to be confirmed via actors speaking out over the years, I was not surprised.

Why couldn't Cordelia have a positive and wanted pregnancy on the show? Why couldn't her pregnancy be written into the storylines in a good way? It wasn't like they didn't have the opportunities to do this. Gruselug, for example, was a half-demon from Pylea who Cordelia started a consensual relationship following his exile from his home dimension. Perhaps instead of exploring some sort of growing romantic connection with Angel, the two of them could have remained in an uncomplicated camraderie while she shacked up with a bloke who, himself, could have had an expanded role fighting the good fight permanently? Or maybe she could have pursued single motherhood, and brought her own child up in this alternate reality of demons and good-doing? Perhaps she could have decided to be a surrogate for the assumed pansexual Lorne? Who knows - they didn't explore a positive vision of pregnancy, then motherhood, for the character.

Instead, they had Cordelia boff a son-like figure in a pity-fuck scenario to fall pregnant. Then the minute she was pregnant, she became evil. Then her child essentially destroyed her as she birthed it, leaving her unable to function beyond that point. Finally, after being in a coma for a while, they brought her back to set Angel on the "right path", only to finally kill her off. It was, in a word, disgusting.

I actually cannot imagine what it must have been like for that actor to have her pregnancy so abused. Carpenter has stated that Whedon was mad with her, that he asked her if she was going to "get rid" of it, and that he called her fat. But I can imagine that as they then set about abusing her character in the storyline, the poor woman had to put on some serious game face just to continue fronting up on set. For a bloke so often celebrated for his "pro-feminist" work, it was all pretty misogynistic work by Whedon. Did Carpenter even get the opportunity to enjoy her pregnancy, and is it any wonder she has also indicated she suffered from post-natal depression?

Rewatching it now, it's making my skin crawl with added ick, cast into relief by both my own ageing process, but also the cast revelations over the years. I can't actually believe, with the power of retrospect, that this was ever considered OK. And I hope, with the reboot, these lessons have been learnt and truly, a new era of the show really does take it to new, actually feminist, places.

Perimenopausal crap.

 I am here to whinge, and am taking a break from my regularly scheduled family history posts to do so. Let's go for some old school feminism, hey?

I have been perimenopausal now for at least three years, however when the clock turned over on 2025, so too did my advancement in this process. I feel like I am going crazy - a couple of years ago, I labelled this entire process "reverse teenagehood", yet had no idea just how accurate this would be the closer I came to my 47th birthday. The thing is though, despite this going on for a few years already, I feel completely unprepared, and I totally believe this shouldn't be the case.

The feeds of my social media accounts are jammed with teas and supplements that apparently alleviate the symptoms of "the change". Yet the only symptom they actually talk about alleviating is hot flushes (flashes, whatever - I will be calling them flushes as I have seen them refer to both). Same sort of thing happened in a work meeting the other day - hand-held fans were suggested as a merch item to highlight reproductive leave. Thing is, I am yet to have a hot flush. I am pretty convinced at this point that they will not feature amongst my symptoms, and though I am deeply curious as to what it might be like to have one related to perimenopause, the only time I have experienced something approximating this was when I was taking Tramadol for my back pain. 

I have noticed too that when we see this process portrayed on screen, hot flushes again end up being the only symptom highlighted. Borgen, for example, had the main character leave a meeting to run her wrists under cold water and change her shirt. There was one scene featuring a "surprise period", but certainly, this didn't disrupt her anywhere near as much. If I were to think about other portrayals over the years, this has been the only constant.

I cannot help but think that the reason why hot flushes are the only thing we ever see addressed in the public sphere is because they are the most sanitised symptom you can portray. It is the symptom that has utterly nothing to do with our "bits". Yes, it is a symptom that does impact about 75% of women going through this reproductive life transition, but 100% of those who menstruate experience menstrual disturbances. Things are a bit more complicated than us simply feeling a bit too hot on occasion.

Why am I writing this now? Well, since the beginning of the year, I have experienced the following:

1. A cycle that lasted 51 days. 
2. Two weeks' worth of spotting.
3. Flooding, and pain that could not be abated by panadeine forte. The flooding actually came on the same day I had my regular check-up with a repro health practitioner so that was rather inconvenient. Every day, I leave the house with a full suite of menstrual products "just in case"
4. Phantom PMT. One of my surefire signs of an incoming period has long been that I will eat everything in the house, then order DoorDash because I am "hungry". This has meant that I am two or three days off starting a cycle. I have still had this symptom in all its glory, but with a "no show" event.
5. Two mini migraines - until late last year, I had not experienced a migraine since my early 40s.
6. Some serious "downs". I find myself pushing away the world, in general, at times. My mood has not been stable, and though there are many factors contributing to that, it is also being exacerbated by the hormonal.
7. Sexual dysfunction. Who knew the body not maintaining that regular series of events could impact that side of things? Well, probably all of us, but again, I cannot think of a portrayal of a woman in her late 40s on-screen that reflects that scenario, even if I have heard women jokingly referring to it all as "men-on-pause".
8. Sleep disturbances. To be fair, I have always struggled with insomnia, but lately, it has reared its head more regularly.
9. Severe inflammatory symptoms, and neuropathy. Some days I wake up, and everything just aches. My body also randomly feels exhausted. The neuropathy in my feet has been a constant for about a year, and though that may have other causes, the timing is deeply suspicious. 
10. Iron deficiency and possibly also Vitamin B deficiency.
11. A feeling of deep excitement and appreciation when I discovered that one of the toilets in at work had a bidet installed in it, and therefore my stress of potentially experiencing a "flood event" at work was alleviated a little.

It's only March.

In some aspects, I have privilege here. I acknowledge, for example, my friends who are parents and have teenage daughters adjusting to their developing bodies at the same time that they are adjusting to theirs. That must actually be hell. I also have the privilege of having a reproductive life that has had clockwork precision, so I therefore can identify these shifts easier than those who have been plagued by irregular periods, PCOS, and so forth. 

But I have NFI what is going on. And nor, it seems, do most other women my age going through this. We're all navigating a series of symptoms that may have all, or nothing, to do with our changing bodies, and even doctor Google is not being much assistance. And to top it off, capitalism has decided I need ads for symptom-relieving tea in my social media feed. Medically, there appears to be not much available except for HRT. Given I never responded well to synthetic hormones such as the Pill, I am unlikely to be gravitating towards that any time soon. There needs to be more out there, but given the male default has greatly framed medical science, and time and time again we are hit with evidence that women's pain is not taken seriously by the profession, I doubt any alternatives will be on the market by the time I am through all this.

On the plus side though, I am at least finding that your average Generation X woman is significantly more likely to whinge openly about all this. The generations before us seemed to suffer more in silence, or if they didn't, they were more likely to be ignored. I am also thankful that reproductive leave is hitting workplace agreements at the same time I am going through this. It does highlight the importance of us to talk openly about the impacts perimenopause has on our working lives to create working conditions that take this into account. 

We also need to change the dialogue, because it is rare that I actually see the word "perimenopause" used. Everything seems to be labelled as "menopause", and this is erasive. A couple of months ago, I wrote as much with the argument that they want us to believe, as women, that the real problem is our loss of fertility and how sad this apparently is. The processes leading up to this, however, are complicated, variable, distressing, and can go on for years, so why is it shelved as far as its importance goes?

Anyway, writing to rant. Hoping this resonates with others. In solidarity. 

The Apology - 17th anniversary

 17th anniversary of the Apology.

I acknowledge my great-uncle whose song about his own experiences as a stolen kid became an anthem for Stolen Gens mob, nationwide - https://youtu.be/v3ytJioxKzI?si=Or-y9Ws6kkjccU7n

I acknowledge my grandmother, whose story as a stolen kid at The Bungalow and Jay Creek was preserved in the Between Two Worlds exhibition - https://territorystories.nt.gov.au/10070/702243

I acknowledge my great-grandmother Alice, who fought hard to keep the connections of family alive by riding her camel hundreds of kms to see her stolen kids - https://alicespringsnews.com.au/.../31/bungalow-days-matter/

I acknowledge my grandfather, his siblings, my dad, uncles and aunties, and their cousins, who were all born under the NT wardship acts and thus had their movements. marriages and dwellings controlled and documented by the state. Not officially "stolen" per se, but the reality is that because they were all wards, there was little real choice people had but to adhere to what the authorities were imposing on them.

Finally though, I acknowledge my great-grandmother Mary, her mother Alethe (Alice, Angelina) and the fact that these two were essentially "ground zero" for studies that became the basis of stolen generation policy due to my now known great-great-grandfather's research work with Baldwin Spencer. Even in 2025, how does one grapple with that legacy? I'd argue that claiming it proudly and uncritically while erasing these two Arrernte women is not the answer - https://blackfeministranter.blogspot.com/.../the-question...

Always remember, so it never happens again.

Learning about colonisation - a long way to go. - Supplementary part to my family tree research

 "You should be thanking your lucky stars that it was the English who colonised you, and not the Dutch/Portuguese/Chinese/insert other group here. You'd all be dead if that were the case".

If I had a dollar... well, let's just say that reparations would no longer be necessary because my dream industrial warehouse convert in the inner north would be fully realised, and I could hire someone who can actually use a stove so I would never have to eat one of my own meals again. Anyway...

All Aboriginal people have heard this claim. Some racist has spat it at us, as a form of defence when we positively assert our identities, in a way of derailing our arguments. It's a lazy way of pointing at some "other", in a classic racist Australian tactic, in a bid to get us to shut up.

As it has turned out though, my family tree research has uncovered that I am the product of two different colonial products. I exist due to the British colonisation of Australia, as well as the Dutch colonisation of Sri Lanka. For all intents and purposes, because my life has been shaped by the former - from racist school yard taunts to becoming involved in the Indigenous sovereignty movement - I am reasonably across how it works to this day. I am the descendant of two people impacted by the wardship policies, three people who were "taken" by welfare due to this, and now, also, anthropologists and the protectorate system. My Arrernte heritage is why I have been othered my entire life, and fighting for pride in this when Australia remains so damn ignorant of its legacy is why I am who I am today. 

But now, I also am a member of the famous Ondaatje family. And as such, this taunt that racists have flung at me so many times over the years has been cast into sharp relief. Suddenly, I have been found myself needing to know more about the Dutch history of colonisation. My knowledge on this front, not unlike those who have throw this feckless taunt my way, is woefully lacking. And so beginneth another research journey for one who is, frankly, addicted to knowing everything she can.

There is no question that Dutch colonisation has been fucked. That it has led to pain, suffering, death, apartheid, and so many other things over the centuries. HOWEVER, what is inescapable about my Ondaatje line is that they are "Burgher" peoples, and that in contrast to the situation here in Australia, the Burghers are a distinct ethnic group that formed due to the intermarriage of colonials and locals. No such distinct ethnic group here, with its own customs and traditions, has formed due to intermarriage of Aboriginal people and colonisers. We are either "Black" or "White", and the act of positively identifying as Aboriginal is a form of resistance in the face of genocide, assimilation policies, and ongoing colonial agendas. In short, they tried to wipe us out, so it has set up a binary and a need to reinforce our Indigenous heritage in the face of erasure.

So what then is the difference between these colonial processes that has led to a different ethnic group versus an ongoing attempted annihilation? One night, I was drinking at a favourite dive bar in Adelaide, and I hit a fellow Aboriginal mate who knew more than I did up with this question. In a very surface level response, this friend stated that one of the key differences was, very simply, the motive for colonisation. In the case of the Brits here, the motive was the formation of a prison colony so they could shove society's undesirables elsewhere. In the case of the Dutch in Sri Lanka though, as well as religion, it was the spice trade.

What does this ultimately mean? In the case of the Brits, they were expanding their empire, and their goals meant that they were not reliant on the locals to do so, regardless of any sentiments expressed by the Crown. They wanted the space, they needed the land, and so they set out getting it by any means possible. There was no need to learn the local language. As long as Aboriginal people were dying around them and they were still safe, there was also no need to establish trade partnerships. There was some need to enslave locals and put them to work in order to make these ventures successful, but this was done by force and people were compelled to adhere as their homes were starved of resources required to rear non-native animals and crops.

Conversely, when trade is the driving reason for colonisation as what the case was in Sri Lanka, there is a compulsion for colonisers to build up relationships. To integrate into existing communities. My ancestor Quint Ondaatje was noted as being able to speak five different languages proficiently, and certainly, in both the case of Sri Lanka and Indonesia, Dutch colonisers are noted as learning the local language as a way of strengthening trade partnerships. Quint's (and my) ancestor Ondaatchi - the Tamil physician - was celebrated for his knowledge, was integral in providing health care to the colonisers, and he himself converted to Lutherism and adopted the names Michael and Jurgen. In short, in order to succeed in his career, he needed to walk in these two communities, and so too did his employer, the governor. So as such, because trade formed the basis of colonisation, it meant colonisers were more likely to learn the languages and customs, foster positive relationships, and marry in. Force could not be the (sole) basis of the exchange because had it been, the Dutch East India Company would have never have got off the ground. And so from this, a distinct ethnic group that remains as a remnant of that history exists, and I am a descendant of this legacy.

There's one further part to this: those who make the header jibe seemingly forget that the Dutch actually did come to this land before the Brits did. And while there was no active colonisation here by the Dutch, the tale of the Batavia shipwreck states that not only did the people onboard spent more time killing each other than any locals, but that also two mutineers were left on the mainland, where it is thought by some that they survived by marrying into the local communities.

Colonisation has devastated the world. It has led to genocide, enslavement, entitlement, and white surpremacy. The Israel-Palestine conflict exists to this day because colonial powers took it upon themselves to carve up lands that weren't theirs, in a bid to maintain allyships, access to resources, and wallpaper over their own genocidal ambitions. Globally, colonisation is directly responsible for the wealth and health disparaties between the global north and south. But if I have learnt anything from all this, it is that not all colonisation has operated the same.

I recently, truthfully, stated in a public speech that I believe "full decolonisation is not possible", and perhaps this was an individual rather than broader Indigenous community reflection. I think instead, we are in a point in history where we grapple with this legacy while also finding ways to protect land, culture, family, and history, and this comes about via a formal treaty agreement. But as well as me being at peace with the fact that I am the biggest city Black ever created, I now also know that I am the product of two colonial processes. My heritage is complex, and untangling it all when it makes up my very fibres is, in essence, near impossible. It raises other questions too, particularly with regards to how these forebears interacted with the White Australia Policy, and whether this colonial Dutch heritage was erased due to colonial British projects. But I am also thankful that, via knowing more about my roots, I have come to understand more about colonisation globally. As a knowledge-seeker dedicated to lifelong learning, I will always be thankful for that opportunity. 

Dearly Beloved - part 8 in a series

 As I have stated, when I have been walking around the cemeteries, in the majority of cases, my people do not have headstones. A couple have the surname engraved at the front of the grave, but even those who have a defined resting spot are in the minority. Most of them don't. They simply lie, under the dirt, with nothing stating who they are. 

I don't know why. I think in the case of Elizabeth Croker Waldron, perhaps there was once a marker, but given the history of Coburg Pine Ridge Cemetery, constant flooding has washed it all away. I wonder if, perhaps in the case of others, people just never got around to marking it. Or they simply did not have the money, as the only member of my family who did have some finances behind him was James George Waller. It is also likely that others intended on having a stone placed once they had themselves been interred in these resting spaces, but this didn't end up happening. Regardless, it's a good thing I do like walking around cemeteries, reading the stories of others, because certainly, there has been little in the case of stories recorded on my family members' graves.

A notable point of difference has been my great-great-grandfather, John Henry Robinson, and my great-great-grandmother Charlotte Amor. They are co-interred in one of the most stunning cemeteries in Melbourne (Booroondara), with a clearly marked grave, and spectacular old-school headstone. My great-grandmother Bertha was their 7th-born child, immediately after her twin brother Albert. They are the only set of twins I have found in my family tree - I do have twin cousins, but that's different to descending from a twin. There were also some fantastic photos of Albert available. What can I say, the dude looked like a movie star. He had soulful eyes and cheekbones to die for, and it was the latter that gave me some historical echoes, as I also have prominent and high cheekbones.

Anyway, on shifting through Ancestry, and then downloading some certificates, I realised that what had been recorded about John Henry Robinson was incorrect. He was not, as others had recorded, from Wiltshire, rather he was a Dubliner. Though he was known as "John" quite often, his name was actually "John Henry", and he preferred to be addressed as such because his father's name was John. His mother, on his marriage certificate, was listed as Mary Farrell. Beyond these two, I have not been able to find much in the way of information. So I make the assumption that they too were Dubliners.

Another interesting thing about John Henry is that he came to Melbourne on the Leonides from NZ, having spent 7 months living there. I am unsure if his intended destination was always Melbourne, or if he had moved to NZ and then simply decided he wanted to move on. Either way, it's fortuitous that he did come here, because if he hadn't, then I wouldn't exist.

Charlotte was 19 when she married John Henry, her sister Letitia acting as her witness. Charlotte had come to Melbourne with her parents and her two surviving sisters - Louisa being the eldest and the other one. Her parents Henry and Elizabeth, like so many other of my ancestors, had so many children that didn't survive infancy, that I cannot help but think they moved here in the hope of a better life and to escape some pain. The trouble is, it didn't work out for them. Within a couple of years, the Amor sisters were orphaned, their parents buried in an unmarked grave in St Kilda, and Louisa marrying and seemingly acting as the parent figure until her sisters were old enough. I cannot imagine how terrifying this would have been for them.

On flicking through the records of John Henry and Charlotte, one thing becomes crystal clear - these two were utterly adored. John Henry, following his death at 64 years old from heart disease and pneumonia was, every year without fail, honoured by "in memoriam" notices by his wife and many children and their partners. Almost always, these loving notices contained a poem, or some skillful prose. It was amongst these notices actually that I first got the indication my great-grandmother's husband Cyril Purser Tuttleby was sometimes fondly known as "Purse" - he had signed one of these notices as such. But yes, I think it speaks a lot for John Henry that on his death, so many members of his family kept his memory alive.

I believe John Henry worked in industrial labouring, but that he was a tram "grip man", and so transported materials across sites and what-not. He apparently worked for the same people for over 40 years.

When John Henry died, Charlotte continued to live in their home at 61 Easey St (worth 250 pounds at the time) with her daughter Grace, who didn't marry until later in life. Due to this, Charlotte made special provisions in her will for Grace, leaving her furniture and household effects, then from there, dividing up her house and estate equally between all her children. Her executors were her son Henry, and her son-in-law Samuel. Charlotte's death was also marked by numerous loving messages in the classifieds. Despite her incredibly rough start, she died at 73 years old.

I wish I had photos of John Henry and Charlotte, and some more information, because truly, they seemed to be a deeply loving and devoted couple who fostered that same love in their own children. Of their daughter Bertha, I have few photos. There is one though of her standing in a wheat field next to a woman who, thanks to those tell-tale cheekbones, has to be another family member. She was a striking woman, not a traditional "beauty", per se, but with incredibly strong features that made her stand out.

Anyway, of all my ancestors, with the exception of James George Waller possibly who seemed similarly adored, it is clear John Henry and Charlotte fostered love and happiness, and in their grave, their children have let subsequent generations know just how much they thought of their parents.

"Can't swing a cat without hitting a Liddle" - part 7 in a series

 As mentioned, apart from getting a definitive answer to a couple of questions on my Liddle side, I have not ended up doing much research on that side. The Liddles are a big, Aboriginal family from Central Australia, and as such, just carrying that surname due to patriarchal social norms, as well as coming from a second well-known Central Australian Aboriginal family in the Perkinses through my grandmother, placed me in ways I have never known on the non-Indigenous side. There had also been other family members on that side who had already undertaken the research on the Liddle lines, so I was thankful for that work done, really. It was simple: the Liddles came over here from the Orkney Islands in Scotland where they mainly worked sheep. Thomas Drever Liddle and Mary Hercus landed in South Australia with their children, my lot descend from their son Thomas Foster Liddle and his second wife, Matilda Hurle. Their son, William Hurle Liddle went from Angaston, SA, up to Central Australia, got a pastoral lease. And therefore the "Central Australian Liddles" descend from William and his acknowledged Arrernte wife Mary Earwaaker. William had additional children to other women on the cattle station, and as such, surnames like Randall, Forrester, etc are also part of our immediate family. 

A huge part of my experience therefore have been people coming across random Liddles, via the public sphere, the media, politics, community, etc and going "hey, are you related to...". This happens all the time, and I am sure other Liddles get asked it in relation to me. In short though, the most common ones I get (relationship, in white ways of knowing, expressed in brackets) are: Lorraine (first cousin, once removed), Kerrynne (first cousin), Ryan (second cousin), Catherine (second cousin), Helen & Zane (aunties), Leanne (first cousin), Johnny (first cousin, once removed), Bob (first cousin, once removed), and Allan (dad). Just to cover it 😉

So it's due to this network, this already done research, and the many trips up and back from Mparntwe in my life, that digging deeper didn't really happen. I thought I knew the story there.

A trip to Fawkner Cemetery to visit the resting spots of my mum's family changed that perception. And in all places it could change, the "Pioneer Section" was probably the least likely. But here we are.

The Pioneer section is on "third avenue", and to get to my nanna Lorna's wall niche, I walk straight through it. As I was doing so, the above headstone caught my eye for obvious reasons, so I took a photo and looked up the names when I got home. I didn't assume a relationship, it was simply interesting that there was a Liddle in this section.

What did I find out? Well, firstly, Peter Liddle was from the Orkney Islands as well, and indeed, from Kirkwall, which was where Thomas Foster Liddle was born before his parents relocated to SA. Secondly, Christina was also from this area. Thirdly, we were related to both of them, as Peter's grandmother was a Drever, Christina's mother was a Drever, both of them had siblings married in with the Hercuses - which we also were, and so forth. 

I will be straight up: the Orkneys are isolated, and as such, there was a lot of intermarriage going on between the families. So much so, that what I saw was an intricate network of various family names, and therefore, quite trackable. Though I am yet to find out exactly how my lot are linked to both Peter and Christina, but when I can give it some real time, I will be able to figure it out quite easily.

I also found out that Peter was here for the goldmining. He died a few years down the track up in the QLD goldfields, of all places. There was another part to this though. Next to this grave was another grave for the Miller family (as I have since found out, more correctly "Millar", but spelling is not always consistent. Such is also the case with Hercus/Harcus). I found out that these graves are a pair, and were originally surrounded by a wrought iron barrier. The Millers were also from the Orkneys, and were, in fact, Peter's maternal uncle and his wife and children. We have links with the Orkney Millers as well, and as such, are related to this lot too. 

So in effect, I was not just looking at a Liddle relation who had, somehow, landed in Victoria before my Liddles made it to SA. I was looking at an entire family group of ours who came to Australia earlier. As such, I am fascinated.

I am yet to work out the exact degree of relationship between us and these family members, but thanks to a wonderful website on the Orkney families by another descendant of these families, I am looking into it now. Hopefully, I figure it all out soon!