William Henry Franklin was John's second son born in 1880 in the Yea district of Victoria. As an experienced shearer, William worked the stations and properties in both NZ and Australia travelling to NZ on numerous occasions prior to permanently settling in Dargaville with his wife Eliza and young children. The descendants of these children were well represented at the reunion and eager to know more of their extended family in Australia.

The reunion was conducted over three days and included a traditional Maori Hungi and sadly the scattering of the ashes of William's youngest son Albert. Glinks Gully is situated on the west coast of the north island, approximately three hours drive north of Auckland - a secluded spot of approximately 100 'batches' (holiday houses) only seconds from the beach. Numberous activities including an egg thowing game and the collection of Tuatua were organised. The family had secured a special license before the family swarmed the beach to collect this sought after delicacy. The license permitted the collection of 200 of these prized shell fish which were later cooked and shared amongst the tribe.

Our NZ relatives are a fun loving and friendly bunch of people who willing shared their special place with us and warmly welcomed us to this special event.

With the organization of an Australian reunion well on the way, we hope and expect quite a few of our NZ cousins will be able to travel the Tasman and meet many of their other Franklin relatives unable to attend the NZ reunion.

It was with deep regret that Franklin descendants were informed of the recent sudden passing of Aunty Irene Lawrey. For many years Aunty Irene was an integral part of the family’s search for the history behind the Franklin’s relationship with the Kilmore - Yea region. There was no stone unturned or article unread as Aunty Irene pursued her knowledge about her Aboriginal heritage. Her move to the nursing home at Kilmore in 2010 provided a wonderful location to continue her story. She confided that she was glad to be living in Kilmore as she felt she was ‘home’ as she was on Taungurung country.

Aunty Irene’s quest for her history started as a young girl and was willingly shared amongst many Franklin descendants. Documents, in the form of letters and official correspondence as well as photographs and anecdotes were readily exchanged with other family members to help compile and assemble a true history of the Nira Balug clan of the Taungurung. Sadly, just as family members were in a position to help Aunty Irene document her findings she advised she needed time to regain her health and consequently this project was temporarily placed on hold.

Fortunately many of her files, photographs and notes have been archived but it is her interesting yarns and stories she retained in her memory that will be lost to the rest of the family.

She will be sadly missed by her family and by all those who worked closely with her. It is hoped that her work will be continued by other members of the Franklin family.

Prof. Chalmers had been researching the unusual arrangement of stones on his property and concluded that they could have been established by the Nira Balug people (a clan of the Taungurung) to herd kangaroos up the hill, into a race, where they were trapped and separated for slaughter or breeding. He compared the 'Euroa men' rock drawings found in the Strathbogie Ranges and theorised that the rock drawings could actually depict the local Aboriginal people herding and corralling kangaroos.

Other interesting stone arrangements were shown to the group and speculation was made that one stone arrangement was in fact a calendar made in the shape of a giant bird - possibly Bunjil - with it's beak pointing eastward towards the rising sun. Through cavities in the adjacent caves, sunlight could penetrate and shine on the back wall of the cave accurately depicting the time of the year.

Going through the family album can be fun. Those old photographs can pose many questions and speculations. This was the case when I recently closely examined the photograph of my grandmother - Dolly Rubina Franklin (on the right) as a young teenager. The photograph closely resembled another photograph I had in my collection. That photograph was a picture of my great grand aunt - Hannah Franklin - also as a teenager. The two photographs looked so similar - the resemblance was uncanny. They could have been the same person.

Paul will be presenting a talk about Indigenous Astronomers at 8pm on Wednesday 8th October 2008 at the National Herbarium Building, Birdwood Avenue, Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. All are invited.

Find out more about Indigenous Astronomers from the following websites.

Aboriginal astronomers see emus in the sky.

http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?/science/news/stories/s1437646.htm

and

Aboriginal Skies

http://sa.apana.org.au/~paulc/loreaussie.html

With enough pelts to make two cloaks, Aunty Jean and Loraine sewed the pelts together and brought along the unfinished cloaks to inspire the other members of the Franklin clan. Numerous ideas of imagery were put forward to represent the nine sons and three daughters of John Charles Franklin and Harriet Tull. A concept drawing was developed and circulated to all present at the gathering held on Sunday 31st August. A further workshop has been scheduled to settle on the drawing and to start the burning.

The project was funded by Monash University and quite a number of the Taungurung community participated in this cultural artifact.

The coat was decorated using a traditional approach of burning iconography onto the pelts that were then sown together. The patterns burnt onto the pelts represent the various research schools of the University and it is intended that the coat will be used in ceremonial activities at the University.

Here is some of the feedback from the organiser of the conference.

What an amazing woman Aunty is and you have to know that she drew everyone in the room close to her with her beautiful natural Welcome from the heart. There were a lot of people from large Organisations and Managers from the Department of Human Services who have all seen a lot of Welcome to Country's - but Aunty impressed every single one of them with her honest and sincere Welcome. I spoke with a number of the delegates from the meeting both at the conference itself as well as back here at the office yesterday and every single one of them smiled and said how amazing Aunty Jean was - hearing Aunty talk of her personal life was just so refreshing, and wow, you should have heard the roar of laughter when Aunty made a funny comment, she captivated everyone's attention.

You can contact Aunty Jean via loraine.padgham_@taungurung.net (you will need to remove the _ before the @ sign.

More details and photos will follow shortly

Click here to see photos of the day

The supervisor's house is currently undergoing renovation however it seemed to be a considerably large building for the time and period.

Further information about Coranderrk can be found at the following website.

http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/encounters/coranderrk/index.htm

This is a photo of my grandparents Elise and Joe Murphy and myself. I uploaded this photo as after the recent passing of Joe Murphy, he will be missed by all that new him.

(L-R) Minister Gavin Jennings, Jean, Noel Williamson, Pru Stewart and partner

Jean with Aboriginal soprano, actor, composer and playwright Deborah Cheetham

Melbourne Lord Mayor John So and Jean Williamson