Maria McDonald had mixed feelings about the ups and downs of tracing her family’s ancestry – finding their footprints back in time, as she puts it – but believed it was well worth the effort.
If I were to sum up the emotions I felt on this journey as our family united to retrace and pay respects to our ancestors, I would say I felt a sense of healing and appreciated the importance of strengthening our connections. My name is Maria, and this experience has taken myself and my family on a journey of ups and downs of emotions, as we retraced our footprints back in time and learned about the injustices our ancestors endured. It was a lot of different or mixed feelings, which we all feel when it comes to family.
Most of us have endured some sort of trauma in our lives, our ancestors sadly weren’t given any choices. I believe situations happen for a reason in life, and when I learn of our family history, I felt the spirits of ancestors still around me, guiding and showing me how to be resilient. Our steps back in time took us to our Great Grandmother Alice Hart. Gran had four children – George, Paddy and twins Daisy and Lilly. Under the 1904 Act, three of her children – Paddy, 9, and the twins, Daisy and Lilly, aged 4 – were taken to Deebing Creek Mission for their own ‘protection and education’ . There was no information about what happened to their brother George, as far as I am aware. Alice was allowed to accompany her children to Deebing Creek, but was soon turned around and sent back to Roma without them. She wrote relentless letters to see them, but to no avail. She was never to see or know of what became of her children.
Thanks to Link-Up’s research we can also put to rest the disappearance of one of the twins, Lilly, who had health issues. I do believe she had epilepsy. She was taken to Brisbane for treatment but from one of these visits wasn’t returned to Deebing. Her disappearance had been troubling our family for a number of years, but through LinkUp we found out she was taken into care when she was 10-yearsold with a family in Brisbane. We believe she was doing domestic duties. When she was ill she was transported to Dunwich Benevolent Asylum on Stradbroke Island, where she was also used as a domestic, and passed away at only 28 years of age.
We can all agree on what an emotional journey these young lives must have endured, and how resilient it must have made them. Thanks to Link-Up (Qld) we were able to use what they found from their research to connect with family we never knew existed. The connection when we met my cousins Kate and Kelly was remarkable. It was like we always known each other as family.
Kate, Kelly and I took this journey together to take the same steps and pay our respects to our footprints back in time.
Published 2 July 2024.