Archives Office of Tasmania : Brief guide 017 - issues in documenting Tasmanian Aboriginal genealogies

Brief Guide 17: issues in documenting Tasmanian Aboriginal genealogies

In general archival records that specifically identify people as being Aboriginal are those referring to Aboriginal people themselves in the first few decades of European colonisation. Records of later generations of all Tasmanians (Aboriginal and non Aboriginal) do not indicate their race. The only exception to this is in records dealing with the Bass Strait islands.

Virtually all records which mention Aboriginality are records of something else and just happen to mention a person's Aboriginality. Records of baptisms are good examples of this, and experience suggests that there are very few instances of baptism records mentioning Aboriginality in comparison with the total number of baptisms together with the total number of European, un-baptised, births.

Given the above, if people who believe themselves to be of Aboriginal descent and are unable or un-willing to specify at which point in their family tree their Aboriginality is derived (i.e. the birth of a child with an Aboriginal parent) and need to provide a record of this descent, or evidence from which it could be reasonably inferred, then this is a potentially difficult task. This research will also of course have to be undertaken by anyone attempting to disprove such an un-specified claim.

A person living now is separated by perhaps six or seven generations from any record indicating that its subject is Aboriginal and will need to ‘track back’ each of their forebears for this number of generations to determine which, if any, was Aboriginal. This could involve well over 100 people and is a far from easy task. It also needs to be borne in mind that there were no official birth registrations until the late 1830s and that not every child born was baptised; as a result many of these events may not be recorded in government or church records.

Such a process is similarly applicable to other genealogical research aimed at establishing a specific attribute of a possible, but unknown, ancestor that many generations ago. The difficulties are related to the uncertainty and elapse of time, not the content of archival records.

For people wishing to demonstrate through the provision of a record that shows, or from which it could be reasonably inferred, their Aboriginal descent, and who can state the point in their family tree at which this took place, the situation is very different. A specific event can generally be verified (or otherwise) fairly readily, either absolutely or as the most likely assumption on the basis of available records.

As far as completeness or comprehensive coverage generally of records dealing with the early 19^th Century held in the Archives Office is concerned, even records of people in the convict system, which was fairly efficient at keeping records, clearly has gaps in its coverage through its primary records of its early times and the same applies to early records of Europeans arriving free. There can be little doubt that there was a quite large number of Europeans here in the early 1800s who were having children and who themselves and their children did not necessarily get mentioned in records until perhaps they were parents of a later generation or had some later interactions with government organisations which resulted in the creation of a record. Although these people were not the subject of contemporary records their presence and most likely origin can be reasonably definitely inferred from other records. This means that although sometimes people appear in records when there is no specific record of either their arrival or birth (although most of the time there is) this does not of itself indicate anything in relation to their Aboriginality.