I had gone to the cemetery especially to see it, reading online that it was there somewhere. As I was walking back out through the graves I came across the Aboriginal section.
That struck me: the importance of ancestors to the Aboriginal people, how they acknowledge them and revere them. How long was it since I visited the grave of my parents, both long dead? I felt ridiculous visiting the grave of a man who mattered little to me.
The next lot of holidays, an advertisement for Ancestry. I had to give my credit card details which I baulked at, but still signed up and quickly found myself thoroughly immersed in my own ancestral history. On the first day I found the name, Eliza McCready, and through a small new article that someone put up on their profile learnt that she was one of the Irish Orphans sent to Australia during the Famine.
Eliza comes from my paternal side. My father died when I was six years old, and though my memories of him are few, they are stark in their clarity. Eliza came to me through him and so I was immediately enthralled. Her name appeared in the archives, documents from which I could determine meaning.
I could learn about things she had actually gone through and witnessed in her life. I would not know her emotions but I would know the machinations of world history going on around her. I knew about the Irish Famine in a broad, sweeping way; now I could place Eliza in this time.
