Dr Jacinta Walsh is unearthing archival truths & growing Aboriginal kinship knowledges in the Kimberley

The Beagle Bay Sacred Heart Church. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

When you ask Dr Jacinta Walsh, a Jaru Kitja Yawuru woman, about her research, she laughs warmly and replies, “It’s my life!”

Dr Jacinta Walsh.

Dr Walsh’s PhD, conferred in 2024, centres on her great-grandmother, Mabel Ita Eatts, née Frederick (1907-1991), a Kitja Jaru woman and a Stolen Generations Survivor who was born on Country in Ceremony in Lugangarna/ Palm Springs.

“I’ve spent the last six years doing the PhD,” says Dr Walsh, who is a lecturer at Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, and a Research Fellow with the Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Environmental Histories and Futures. “Through this journey, my sons and I returned to Country and explored old family documents held by the State Records Office of Western Australia (SROWA) and the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA).”

Her proposal to support an archival trip to help Aboriginal families to access historical records in Western Australia was highly commended by the 2025 John Mulvaney Fellowship judging committee.

“These archive institutions hold thousands of historic police, Aboriginal department and church records. Access to this material, enabled our family to find sixty years of Mabel’s life. Her experiences reflected the lived experiences of many other Aboriginal people in Western Australia during her time.”

“This process highlighted the importance of archives to our family’s kinship ties and memories. By accessing this material, we could remember our love for ourselves and recognise the devastating truths of our colonial past.”

Kinship ties in the Kimberley

Dr Walsh and her sons visit the Beagle Bay Sacred Heart Church and its famous inlaid shell altar, while visiting on Country. Source: supplied.

“I was adopted at four months old,” Dr Walsh says. “When I was around 24, I felt that I wanted to know more of my Aboriginal ancestry. So I contacted Link-Up.”

Link-Up is a family tracing and reunion service for members of the Stolen Generation seeking information about family members and ancestral history.

“In 1998, I was able to reconnect with my birth mother, who is Irish, English, and my birth father who is Jaru, Kitja, Yawuru. By chance that same year, a cousin had applied to the Aboriginal History Records in Western Australia and received documents about Mabel. So, when I met my father, my cousins and uncles, I was able to meet Mabel, too, through those documents.”

“We have spent over twenty-five years going through the documents of her life,” she explains. “There are police surveillance files, Beagle Bay Mission reports, and letters she and the man she married had written to, and received from, the notorious Mr A. O. Neville, the Chief Protector of Aborigines and Commissioner of Native Affairs in Western Australia from 1915 to 1940. He spent twenty-five years creating files on Aboriginal families, communicating with regional police and church Missions holding Aboriginal Children, to coordinate the removal of Aboriginal children and control of Aboriginal families. He was entirely committed to this work.”

“That is the darkest reality these documents expose.”

Control, access & power

Since the colonisation of Australia, researchers, police, government, education, and religious institutions have collected vast amounts of information about Aboriginal families.

Once used to oppress, control, and dehumanise communities, these documents have ironically now become vital sources of information for surviving families and their descendants. The Victorian Yoorrook Justice Commission recently asserted that these documents, despite their past use, have become powerful tools for healing, empowerment, and truth-telling.

Yet, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families face unequal, laborious and restricted access to these archival documents compared to non-Indigenous families.

“Many non-Indigenous people can sign up for a service like Ancestry and be able to trace back 5 or 6 generations quickly because there has been so much money invested in the digitalisation of colonial European documents,” says Dr Walsh.

“But for Aboriginal families, our records are the mirror to Australia’s colonising experience, and of the violence perpetrated against our families, so there is little government will do make them freely available to families and researchers.”

Challenges in accessing essential family documents

Three generations of Dr Walsh’s family review family documents at the State Records Office of Western Australia. Source: Supplied.

Dr Walsh stepped us through how difficult the process is for Aboriginal families in the Kimberley to gain access to documents about their family members.

“Many Kimberley family documents have been destroyed, and what remains can be hard to access due to institutional gatekeeping red tape, poor preservation, and a lack of investment in indexing, cataloguing, and digitisation of this material.”

“To access records created by Chief Protector A.O. Neville, Aborigines Department, for instance, a person is required to apply to Aboriginal History Research Services in Perth. They are asked to submit an application form and a consent form signed by an older family member. This process assumes you know your ancestor’s name and have connections within the community. Stolen Generations survivors may not have these connections and so they may not apply. If you do apply, it can take up to 12 months to receive just one file on one ancestor, and applicants are not encouraged to reapply. This process is archaic and cruel, and these systems have not changed in decades” she says.

The Australian government worked closely with church organisations to remove thousands of Aboriginal children from their families from the late 1800s through to the early 1970s. It can be difficult to know who holds what records and how to access them.

“Records created and held by church organisations are considered private collections and there are no laws to ensure they provide archive access to Indigenous families” Dr Walsh adds.

“The Sisters of St John of God have a Heritage Centre in Broome which holds thousands of photos and documents; however, this Centre is closing in October. Previously, this centre charged $20 for a copy of a photo. This amount was unaffordable for many. Now, these items are being transferred to the Aboriginal History Unit in Perth. While they will likely be preserved, access to this material will continue to be challenging.”

“Aboriginal family documents are politicised and heavily guarded because of their ability to reveal Australia’s true history,” says Dr Walsh.

The next generation: Strength, vision & legacy

This year commemorates 50 years of NAIDOC Week. The theme, The next generation: strength, vision and legacy focuses on empowering the strength of young leaders, the vision of communities, and the honouring legacy of ancestors.

It’s a poignant message for Dr Walsh, in relation to her work uncovering and honouring ancestor stories across Australia.

“It’s important to continue to work with the institutions who hold these records about our family members.”

“We want to improve Indigenous family data sovereignty and transparency for all Kimberley families, so we know the stories of our ancestors, and we can honour them.”

Mentorship

Mentorship is also an important part of Dr Walsh’s journey.

“I joined Monash University as a professional staff member, after a period out of the workforce while I raised my children. It was Professor Lynette Russell who encouraged me to undertake my PhD.” she says.

“At that point, I was a single mum with three teenage boys. It was scary to go back to university. But since I was a mature student, I had the lived experience to feed into my research.”

Dr Walsh plans for her grandmother Mabel’s extraordinary life to be shared through the publication of her thesis and she will continue her work towards an ARC grant application to develop the research.

“I am appreciative of the Academy for this honour. This commendation has provided me with the opportunity to share the importance and challenges of archive access for First Nations families in the Kimberley, as well as the immense healing and truth-telling powers of ancestry research. This means the world to me. Thank you.”

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