Meet the 'walking archive' helping First Nations people discover family history

Every year, hundreds of First Nations people from around the country seek out Ali Abdullah-Highfold in hopes of finding a missing piece of their family history.

WARNING: This article contains the names and images of Indigenous people who have died.

"We've had Stolen Generation members come in and I've shown them photos of their mother before that they've never seen, [after] they were taken and adopted into a white family," Mr Abdullah-Highfold said.

"We've had lots of tears and laughter so it's very rewarding to be able to give them back their family history."

Mr Abdullah-Highfold, a Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, Kokatha and Wirangu man, has worked for the South Australian Museum in Adelaide for 28 years with the Aboriginal family history unit, where he has helped thousands of Indigenous people discover their lineage.

"People will come in and say, here's my mother's name, here's my father's name, give me my family history, and that's obviously not an easy thing to do," he said.

Using the museum's detailed Aboriginal genealogy records and archives dating back to colonisation, Mr Abdullah-Highfold is able to trace generations using documented family trees.

"I get up of 300 to 500 people a year come in and it's hard work," he said.

"Some of the people that have been researching have been researching for 10 to 12 years and just haven't been able to find that connection."

A family connection

The SA Museum houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural material in the world.

Mr Abdullah-Highfold says tens of thousands of items are stored in the museum's archives, but crucial to his work is the research and publications of his Aunty Doreen Kartinyeri, a prominent Ngarrindjeri elder and historian.

Ms Kartinyeri started the museum's family history unit in 1988, a family legacy which Mr Abdullah-Highfold wants to continue.

"The brilliant part of this unit is that we can help people with their story and their identity and the health, wellbeing, closure and trauma that's all involved in that,"

he said.

Mr Abdullah-Highfold also draws upon the work of former South Australian Museum anthropologist Norman Tindale, who travelled extensively across Australia collecting photos, videos and records of Aboriginal communities between the 1920s and 1960s.

"There was that belief back then that we would die out and become extinct so those expeditions recorded everything and anything about our people, our culture, our language," he said.

"Physical measurements of people as well, hair colour, eye colour, intelligence testing, dental work, all those scientific people during that day went and recorded everything."

One of the people who worked alongside Mr Tindale on his expeditions was Mr Abdullah-Highfold's great-grandfather Clarence Long.

"It comes down to plant life, language, culture, ceremonies, all that information which is all vital for our history and culture," Mr Abdullah-Highfold said.

"Something they thought was lost, through these archives can now be revived."

Growing demand for answers

Kaurna elder Tim Agius is part of the Aboriginal Advisory Committee to the SA Museum.

He said Mr Abdullah-Highfold's work has been "extremely important" in reconnecting people to family, culture and language.

"Ali is one of the key information centres … he's a walking archive himself with the knowledge about family history,"

Mr Agius said.

"He's one of the very rare people, one of our community people in Adelaide that has that knowledge because he's been around for a long time.

"When people apply to the state government to access those archival records it could take up to two or three years and sometimes we lose people who are waiting for that knowledge."

Mr Agius said with the "enormous" demand on Mr Abdullah-Highfold, he would like to see the state's family history records made more easily available for Aboriginal people to conduct their own family research.

"The rediscovery of family networks and groups is very overwhelming, traumatising and very emotional but it plays a significant role in the reconnection of our people across the country," he said.

"We need to look at the bigger picture, what the demand is, where it's coming from, analyse it and work out how we can actually streamline it and make it easier."

A lasting legacy

Mr Abdullah-Highfold, who has been in the role solo for about 15 years, said he sometimes felt as though he was "drowning" in his workload and that there was a time-sensitive element to his work.

"The elders that we have left now are our elders that were born before the referendum, they're the ones that lived on the missions," he said.

"I think now these younger generations, if we don't capture that data now and that information from those elders, then it's lost."

Mr Abdullah-Highfold says he hopes to leave behind his own legacy and is working to towards digitising records for greater community access.

"Strength is within our family and in community and to be able to pass on that knowledge to those young people makes them strong," he said.

"When I want to leave and retire in my work, I want to know that I've been able to leave something that's vital and important for our people."

This year, Australia is celebrating its 50th NAIDOC Week, which runs from July 5 to 12.