Reaching Through Time: Finding My Family's Stories

by Shauna Bostock

The powerful story of a Bundjalung woman's journey to uncover her family history.

The phone rang unexpectedly late one night. 'Guess who our white ancestors were?' chuckled Uncle Gerry. 'They were slave traders! A couple of generations of slave traders!'



With this startling revelation, Shauna wanted to find out more. She discovers her ancestor Robert Bostock arrived in Sydney in 1815 convicted of slave trading in Africa, and his grandson Augustus John married Bundjalung woman One My. Battling restrictions on access to government archives, Shauna pieces together her family's stories, from dispossession and frontier violence, to the Aborigines Protection Board's harsh regime on the reserves and surprising acts of kindness, to decades of activism.


Reaching Through Time reveals the cataclysmic impact of colonisation on Aboriginal families, and how this ripples through to the present. It also shows how family research can bring a deeper understanding and healing of the wounds in our history. Shauna writes, 'I am a proud Aboriginal woman who has always wanted to make a stronger connection to my cultural heritage. I experienced an inner yearning to find out about my ancestors and what they experienced in life. This is the story of my journey.'

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Australia, Indigenous, Biography Memoir, Memoir

352 pages, Paperback

Published November 4, 2023

About the author

Shauna Bostock is Indigenous Australian Research Editor in the National Centre of Biography at ANU. For her PhD thesis she traced her four Aboriginal grandparents’ family lines as far back as possible in the historical written record. Her thesis was published as Reaching Through Time: Finding My Family’s Stories by Allen & Unwin and won the Community and Regional History Prize at the 2024 NSW Premier’s History Awards.

Reviews

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Aboriginal Australian Shauna Bostock - a Bundjalung woman - began her research into her ancestral history, she didn't expect to discover she comes from slave traders who operated out of Africa. Robert Bostock Jnr was eventually convicted of slave trading, which had become illegal, and was transported to Sydney, Australia, in 1815, where he became a wealthy landowner. Robert Jnr's grandson, Augustus John, married Aboriginal woman One My (also known as Clara Wolumbin) and they were Shauna's great-great-grandparents.

Her research uncovered the Aboriginal Protection Board (which was anything but!) and she learned about the forced removal of children, of parents begging for help after they'd been put into reserves. During her research, Shauna, a former primary school teacher, gained a PhD in Aboriginal history, and she was helped along the way by many - Professor Peter Read AM, ANU (Australian National University); Professor Ann McGrath AM, ANU; Dr Jackie Huggins AM, historian & author.

Shauna is 58 years of age now, and the very readable Reaching Through Time totally engaged me. The photo on the front cover is of Mary Ann of Ulmarra, Shauna's great-great-grandfather's sister, which was taken by John William Lindt. The decoration of a dingo tail on her head, and the snakebone necklace were meant for men only, and it was theorized that Mary Ann looked unhappy because the photographer made her wear them. Uncle Lewis, a Wahlubal-Bundjalung man, was angry when sighting the picture, and said "They shouldn't have dressed her up like that."

Professor Ann McGrath AM said "Visual and visceral, this book will rumble the ground of what constitutes family history, if not what connects us, the Australian people as a whole." Highly recommended reading.

With thanks to Allen & Unwin AU for my ARC to read in exchange for an honest review.

[Veronica ⭐️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

For more reviews: https://theburgeoningbookshelf.blogsp...
With Reaching Through Time Shauna Bostock has delivered an extensively researched family history going back generations, with interesting facts on Indigenous and Australian history included.

I love family research and genealogy and it doesn't just have to be my own. I can pore over anyone's family tree for hours. Births, deaths, marriages and connections between families fascinates me.

Shauna includes a family tree at the front of the book and I kept turning back to it to see where each relative came in.
You never know what you will find when you start researching your ancestry and Shauna did discover that one ancestor was a slave trader in England. I liked that this book was an honest account of her ancestry and the bad wasn't covered up or omitted.

I enjoyed every aspect of Shauna's book. Her writing is very personable and open. I was astounded by how much research, travel and time went into uncovering all the details and there are pages and pages of sources listed in the back which is a testament to this fact.

Pages of photo inserts are included which give an added connection whilst reading. Thank you Shauna for sharing your precious family photos. They are a beautiful addition to the book.

Reaching Through Time is perfect for readers who enjoy Aboriginal history, Australian history and exploring the past.
*I received my copy from the publisher

[Angella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A meticulously researched family history that filled in so many gaps in the record. I wish I had read this instead of the Australian history texts that were assigned in school. It managed a fine balance between sad, funny and informative.

[Sireesha · Rating 5 out of 5]

While reading this book, I paused several times thinking "this would have been a great addition to my high school curriculum". Shauna Bostock's research and exploration of her family's history is a sharp insight into the history of Australia. Textbooks about Colonialism and the cruel treatment of Aboriginal people have their place but personal stories resonate more. As this book did with me. A poignant, heartfelt book about looking into the past and connecting with our ancestors.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a long and difficult read. Bostock did a great job of giving factual information about the aboriginal history of NSW.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I”m starting with a shoutout to Jazz Money’s film Winhanghana, commissioned by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) and which I saw this week. Wiradyuri poet and artist Jazz Money was commissioned to make a film using the archives of the NFSA, and produced a remarkable work that - without narration - intercuts pieces of archival footage with narrative film from the NFSA’s collections to create a sensory, emotional and historical filmscape about the ways Indigenous people have been captured and presented. I can’t write an essay on it here, but I was struck by how she used the archives to engage with the history of representation of narrative history. It’s really good, check it out. I happened to be reading Shauna Bostock’s excellent book at the same time. Both works draw on incomplete white archives to build their stories. Shauna’s family was exceptional in many ways. Looking at it another way, her family history shows the standard injustices that ordinary everyday Aboriginal people have been routinely subjected to throughout Australian history. Shauna’s book is particularly good on the systems of Aboriginals Reserves and the protectors/welfare boards, and on the activism around Redfern in the 70s. Or maybe these are just the parts of the story I need most to learn about at the moment, so I ate them up. I’m grateful for this book, and for the continued revelations about our shared histories that practitioners like Shauna are making available. This is one of those books that I finished up with a big list of other books and films to chase up after. I need to see Lousy Little Sixpence and The Redfern Story.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many stories in this book which need to be heard. Shauna Bostock has researched her ancestors and found both slave traders and aboriginal people who lived under the control of the Aborigines Protection Board. Many of the latter showed great resilience in order to keep as much as possible of their traditional way of life.

[Kerry Godfrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just started to read this wonderful book. The way history is entwined with the discovery of family history is wonderful. You feel part of the love and humour that is sprinkled throughout the pages . A great insight into
Australia’s history - loving it x

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great family history seeped into Australian history. Praise to the author for her relentless seeking of the truth.