From Thesis to Published Book: An Aboriginal historian’s multi-generational family history research and what it revealed about the impact of colonisation on Aboriginal people

Shauna Bostock’s insatiable curiosity about her family history developed over time to become the focus of her academic research. She traced her four Aboriginal grandparents’ family lines to as far back as she could go in the written historic record, which was during the encroachment of white settlers onto Bundjalung Country, northern New South Wales. Shauna placed her family history into the chronological timeline of Australian history from past to present, thus creating a multi-generational narrative of the lived experience of Aboriginal people in New South Wales. This narrative reveals untold truths about the cruelty of the NSW government’s Aborigines Protection Boards from the colonial era to more recent times. In this Biography Workshop Shauna will talk about her research journey, what the macrocosmic scope of multi-generational Aboriginal family history research revealed, and how important access to archival documents are to Aboriginal healing and national truth-telling.

Dr Shauna Bostock is a descendent of the Bundjalung people of northern New South Wales. After completing her doctoral thesis, 'From Colonisation to My Generation: An Aboriginal Historian's Family History Research Past to Present', she graduated from The Australian National University in 2021. Shauna signed a book deal with Allen and Unwin publishers in early 2022, and by January 2023 her manuscript was complete. Her book, Reaching Through Time: Finding My Family's Stories was published in July 2023. In September 2024 Shauna won the NSW Premier's History Award, Community and Regional History Prize. Shauna currently works at the National Centre of Biography as the Australian Dictionary of Biography's Indigenous Research Editor.