This paper is an invitation to engage in a conversation about locating and reconstructing Aboriginal voices in historical research, from the perspectives of a non-Aboriginal academic historian and an Aboriginal family history researcher. 

Collaboration between academic and family/community researchers is a way of making the historical information found in the research accessible to the families of Aboriginal people whose story it is. For many Aboriginal people, Aboriginal historical narratives and truth are locked up in records and archives, and if you are lucky enough to locate them, you have to consider how you would preserve them for the purpose of enriching future generations. For non-Aboriginal historians working in Aboriginal history, the challenge is in ensuring that these histories you produce are genuinely responsive to the concerns and insights of the descendants of those people you are researching.

In this joint presentation, the speakers will share their individual and shared experiences researching the remarkable story of Kath’s grandmother Undelya Apma/Nanna Minnie, who was stolen from her parents in central Australia by the doctor, geologist and self-proclaimed Aboriginal authority Herbert Basedow in 1920. Together we will examine the importance of collaborative sharing in national memory and identity.