Shauna Bostock: Reaching Through Time - finding my family’s stories

The powerful story of a Bundjalung woman's journey to uncover her family history begins with the startling revelation that generations of her white ancestors were slave traders. Battling restrictions on access to government archives, Shauna gradually pieced together her family's stories of dispossession and frontier violence; life on reserves under the harsh regime of the Aborigines Protection Board; a cricket match with Bradman; activism and arts in Redfern; and a surprising reconciliation. 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.

A former primary school teacher, Shauna Bostock's curiosity about her ancestors took her all the way to a PhD in Aboriginal history at ANU. Her book won the NSW Community and Regional History Prize, NSW Premier's History Awards, 2024, and was shortlisted for the Mark and Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, 2024. She is currently Indigenous Australian Research Editor in the National Centre of Biography at ANU.

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