The Lisa Jackson Pulver Story - Part 3 — Dark Emu Exposed - And the Assault on Australian History

Nov 5

Nov 5 The Lisa Jackson Pulver Story - Part 3

Finding Professor Jackson Pulver’s Father

As we described in Part 2 of the Story of Lisa Jackson Pulver, Jackson Pulver herself has provided a number of ‘markers’ that we believed would enable us to begin the construction of her family tree. The critical ‘handle’ we needed was to work out who her parents were.

Jackson Pulver herself tells us that her mother’s maiden name was ‘Smith’ and her father was from families with the names, ‘Jackson’ and ‘Angel’ (Ref).

She also tells two interviewers that, ‘I was born in inner Sydney and my parents moved in short order out to a place called Revesby’, and that she ‘was born in Stanmore in 1959, but grew up on a quarter-acre block in Revesby’ (Ref & Ref).

Our researchers thought that this information would be enough to establish who her parents were - a simple, though tedious, matter of searching the electoral rolls for a husband and wife named Jackson living at the same address in Revesby, then checking the marriage records for each of those couples to get their Marriage Certificates, and hence their marriage dates, their ages and importantly the names of their parents. In particular, we needed Meryl/Merle’s parent’s names as we had no other corroborating evidence as to who they were. Without their names we could not determine the maternal family tree of Professor Jackson Pulver.

Fortunately, the marriage records in NSW are only confidential for 50 years, hence if Jackson Pulver’s parents married prior to 1972 (50 years ago) then the certificate would be publicly available. Given that we know that Jackson Pulver was born in 1959, it is more than likely that her parents were married prior to 1959. [Note Death records are confidential in NSW for 30 years and Births for 100 years].

However, after a week of solid work we hit a blank wall - we had been able to locate a prime couple called ‘Jackson’ living in ‘Revesby’ in the correct time period, based on their electoral roll records, but when we searched the NSW Marriage Records we just could not find their Marriage Certificate.

The electoral roll displaying, Ray Leonard Jackson and his wife Merle Joan, both of 22 Simmons Street Revesby, did seem to provide a good match for Lisa’s parents. Lisa informs us that she was born in 1959 in Stanmore and a short time later her parents moved the family to Revesby. Ray and Merle first appear on Revesby’s electoral roll in 1963 and they live there for at least the next 14 years until 1977 (Figure 1).

**Figure 1 - Electoral Roll records for Ray Leonard Jackson and Merle Joan Jackson**

But why couldn’t we find the Marriage Certificate for Ray Leonard Jackson and his wife Merle Joan in the NSW Births, Deaths & Marriages office?

Were they married in another state, or perhaps their names were slightly different on their Marriage Certificate, or perhaps even they were an unmarried, defacto couple?

Another week of solid research in the NSW archives using all manner of name combinations finally led to a breakthrough - our researchers came across a marriage record for a Raymond Leonard Jackson and a Meryl Joan Smith. Could this Raymond be our electoral roll Ray, and this Meryl be a miss-typing of Merle? Or alternatively was this woman’s name really Meryl, which the electoral roll had wrongly recorded as Merle?

On applying for a digital copy of this Marriage Certificate we were told that it was “Not Available’. This does not mean that it cannot be accessed, but rather that no one has ever requested it online before and it would need to be physically recovered from the archives and made available digitally. Thus, we were the first to have ever requested this marriage certificate online - and its contents were highly illuminating in our quest to construct the family tree of Wiradjuri woman Lisa Jackson Pulver.

**Figure 2 - Marriage Certificate for a Raymond Leonard Jackson and a Meryl Joan Smith**

All the evidence points towards this Marriage Certificate being that of Lisa Jackson Pulver’s parents because:

the wife’s maiden name is Smith, which Lisa tells us was her mother’s maiden name;
the husband’s name is Jackson, as confirmed by Lisa (Ref)
the marriage was in 1953 ‘long after the war’ as Lisa tells us (Ref) and before Lisa was born in 1959;
the middle names match the couple living in the suburb Revesby as confirmed by Lisa and the electoral rolls, Ray(mond) Leonard and Meryl/Merle Joan;
there are no electoral records for a Raymond and Meryl Jackson living together in Revesby;
Lisa says, ‘my mother’s father died in World War II’ implying he was a soldier (Ref), which is his occupation on the Marriage Certificate, and
as will become apparent later, Raymond’s mother’s maiden name is Llewellyn and Meryl’s mother’s maiden name is Powell.

From a genealogical research point of view, there are enough corroborating pieces of evidence here to confirm that this Marriage Certificate is of Lisa Jackson Pulver’s parents.

So, we now know that Lisa’s father was Ray(mond) Leonard Jackson (an engineer & fitter) who was born in ca1923 in Armidale NSW and his parents were George Jackson (an engineer) and Hazel nee Llewellyn; and Lisa’s mother was Meryl/Merle Joan Smith who was born ca1930 in Hurstville, NSW and her parents were George Smith (a soldier - who died in the War) and Clarice Powell.

All this corroborating evidence fits nicely, so now we can advance up Lisa Jackson Pulver’s father’s family tree using all the publicly available records whose confidentially has expired.

Raymond Leonard Jackson’s Family Tree

Searching the older electoral records we find that Lisa’s father was living with his parents in 1949 - Hazel and George Jackson, as corroborated on the Marriage Certificate.

Interestingly, we see that he carries his mother’s maiden name, Llewellyn, as an additional second name.

**Figure 3 - Electoral Roll records for Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson and his parents George and Hazel Jackson**

Lisa also provides the ‘military marker’, “my dad was a RAAFie, he served in the war” (Ref).

By searching the RAAF military records {See Note 1 below] we find a large number of references to her father, as follows.

The personal particulars of RAAF Recruit No. 35539 - Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson - are shown in Figure 4.

We know this is Lisa Jackson Pulver’s dad because his father is listed as George Jackson, residing at 15 Camilla St Burwood (same address they had on the electoral roll of 1949 in Figure 3 and the same name as the father on his Marriage Certificate of 1953 (Figure 2).

**Figure 4 -** *Source Note 1 : Page 177 of Record of Service for 35539 Ray Jackson*

Further confirmation that this Ray Jackson #35539 is our Ray Jackson, Lisa Jackson Pulver’s father, is provided by his Initial Training School entry record (Figure 5) in the RAAF where his next of kin is recorded as his mother, Hazel Jackson, a woman with the same name as appears on Ray’s 1949 electoral roll address (Figure 3.) and on his Marriage Certificate (Figure 2).

**Figure 5 - Initial Training School record - Arrived: 10 Sept. ‘43 from file No: 35539 Ray Jackson***. Source Note 1: page 76.*

Another record from the same file No 35539 confirm’s Lisa Jackson Pulver’s father was a born on 19.10.1922, and that he trained and worked as a fitter in the RAAF. This occupation was also confirmed on another document, ‘Application for Enlistment as an Airman’ (Figure 7)

**Figure 6 - Re-enlistment papers for Jackson #35539 (after serving WWII service + 12 months.** *Source Note 1: Excerpt of page 2 – page cut off in archives*

**Figure 7 - Application for Enlistment as an Airman.** *Source ibid page 44*

The RAAF file for serviceman No 35539 - Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson - also contains some photographs of Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver’s father.

**Figure 8 - Service record photographs for RAAF Serviceman No 35539, Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson ca1941-48.** *Source: See Note 1 below*

**Figure 9 - Service record photograph for RAAF Serviceman No 35539, Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson ca1941-48.** *Source: See Note 1 below*

At this stage we should take stock of what we have discovered regarding Ray Leonard Llewellyn Jackson and just see if our research matches the ‘markers’ that Lisa Jackson Pulver herself has told us about her father. If her information matches what we have found independently, then that confirms that we have indeed found the man who Lisa herself says is her father.

We have taken a short film clip of an interview that Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver gave in 2020. In this clip below she tells us that:

“I was born just over here in a place called Stanmore … we moved out to southwestern Sydney to a place called Revesby … my father served in World War Two … my mum was a little bit younger” [her 23 years to Ray’s 30 years when they wed].

“She [her mum] lost her dad [Lisa’s maternal grandfather] in World War Two. He died fighting the Japanese up in New Guinea. He was part of the navy, through a merchant marine small ships program that was conducted by the US in collaboration with the Australians so you know these are people that were always very strong with their idea of service”.

“They [Lisa’s parents] were both Aboriginal people. My mum is a woman who never identified as Aboriginal. She used to say that her mum was a Maori - her mum was in fact a Maori princess she would say and there would always be this wonderful story and of course you know there's no Maori blood there as far as I can tell but in fact her mother was born third tree from the left on a small island in the beautiful Clarence River on the northern New South Wales coast”.

“My father's people were Wiradjuri people and so I identify as a Wiradjuri woman … that’s [he is?] from beautiful downtown Wagga Wagga … my father was definitely [affected by] his war injuries - they called it shell shock in the day - PTSD we'd call it today … he got a job as a fitter and turner … my father died of asbestosis a couple of decades ago [ca 2000] …”

Raymond Jackson passed away in 1996 ‘some two decades ago.’ (Figure 10).

**Figure 10 - Memorial to Raymond Leonard LLewellyn Jackson.**

The ‘markers’ that Professor Jackson Pulver has publicly supplied in Part 2 of our investigation, and in the film clip above, have enabled us to verify independently that the Raymond Leonard Llewellyn Jackson, who we have located in publicly available records, is one in the same man who the Professor describes as her ‘Wiradjuri’ father.

Thus we have reached first base in building the paternal branch of the family tree of Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver.

The Next Stage

In the next, Part 4 of our investigation we will determine if in fact Professor Jackson Pulver’s father has Aboriginal descent, as she claims - was he a Wiradjuri man or not?

Indeed, is the Professor correct in claiming, “my father's people were Wiradjuri people and so I identify as a Wiradjuri woman … that’s [he is?] from beautiful downtown Wagga Wagga.” ?

We are not so sure.

Some of us in the Dark Emu Exposed office are just a little concerned that the Professor could be stretching the narrative here - her father’s military records clearly show he was born in Armidale NSW (Figure 7). Armidale is in a region of north-east NSW that was traditionally only inhabited principally by the Kamilaroi and Nganyaywana Aboriginal people, not the Wiradjuri (See Figure 11).

The Professor must know that her father was born in Armidale in north-east NSW, far outside Wiradjuri country. Has she decided to promote a narrative that relocates her father and ‘his people’ to Wagga Wagga in southern NSW and within Wiradjuri country? (Figure 11). Is she relying on the ‘connection’ that he was stationed in Wagga Wagga briefly with the RAAF during the War? (See Figure 15a below).

At this stage we don’t really know the Professor’s motivation for seemingly getting this simple point incorrect - her father’s Marriage Certificate (Figure 2) and his military records (Figure 7) say he was born in Armidale, outside Wiradjuri country - but the Professor implies he and his people are from Wagga Wagga, deep inside Wiradjuri country.

As we explore the ancestry of the Professor’s father and ‘his people’ the answer to this question will become clearer.

This will be the topic of our next post in the series, The Lisa Jackson Pulver Story - Part 4.

**Figure 11 - Aboriginal Tribal and Language Groups in New South Wales.** *Source*

Notes and Further Reading

Note 1 : Searching the National Archives of Australia (NAA) for Military Records.

These records are easy to search as a ‘guest’ by going to the NAA website and, in our case, typing in the following name and date details for Lisa Jackson Pulver’s father (Figure 12). These search parameters return Ray Jackson’s military record file, which is then searchable (Figure 13).

**Figure 12 - Search webpage to find WWII records for Ray(mond) Leonard Llewellyn Jackson**. *Source:* *NAA website*

**Figure 13 - Search webpage results for WWII records for a Ray(mond) Leonard Llewellyn Jackson**. *Source:* *NAA website*

When children in their 60s (for example, Professor Jackson Pulver) talk of their parent’s Second World War experiences, listeners just need to be careful not to take everything as ‘gospel’. Unless one has studied one’s parent’s military experience in great detail it is very difficult to really know what happened to our parents during the War. Some stories are embellished (by either, or both, the parent or the child) to slant the narrative to emphasis a point that may or may not be true. Just as likely, many parents consciously toned down what really happened to them, or indeed refused to speak at all of the horrors they had witnessed or experienced during their war years. And all of us, parents and children, suffer from fading memories and sometimes imagine things that never really happened, or we get our facts, locations and dates muddled.

So when Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver was asked about her father’s war experience by Richard Fidler on his ABC Radio show, Conversations on 12 October 2012, she replied that,

“His [her dad’s] war was horrendous. He served in many of the big campaigns of course, and he came back really, really damaged.”

Now we can’t, and don’t really wish to, comment on how Professor Jackson Pulver perceived her father’s physical and mental state after the war. She is the best person to know that.

However, we do wish to point out to readers that, in our opinion, as we research the pronouncements of the Professor regarding her family and her ancestry, we are starting to notice a few, somewhat concerning, inconsistencies in her stories.

For example, after reading her father’s military records we believe it is a little misleading when the Professor claims, ‘he [her father] served in many of the big campaigns of course.’

To the listener this implies that her father served with the RAAF in many (that is, quite a few more than one) of the big air battles such as for example, the bombing raids of Europe, the Battle of Britain, or ‘dog-fighting’ with Japanese Zeros over the pacific. The reality is a little different - no less important, dangerous, heroic and admirable, but it is a little disappointing that the Professor is not more specific in what her father really did and achieved.

For in fact, the war records of Ray Jackson show that he joined the airforce on 20 March 1941 as an 18 year old, after Britain (and thus Australia) had declared war on Germany and some seven months before Japan entered the war by bombing Pearl Harbour.

For the great majority of the War, from March 1941 to August 1944, Ray Jackson was based only in Australia with the RAAF working as a rigger, fitter, or air crewman as shown in Figure 14 (his occupations) and Figure 15a & b (his postings & locations).

Interestingly, during this time he was stationed in Wagga Wagga for a brief period around January 1943.

The records show that Ray Jackson was posted overseas only once, for a period of some 15 months, from 10 September 1944 to 7 December 1945, when he was stationed in Borneo and New Guinea as part of an aircraft repair and salvage unit at the end of the war with Japan (see Figures 15b & 16).

Now, this not to say that Professor Jackson Pulver was incorrect to say of her father, “His war was horrendous … and he came back really, really damaged.” The campaign to liberate Borneo from the Japanese in 1945, the time when Professor Jackson Pulver’s father was in the region, was particularly brutal and difficult.

However, the claim by Professor that her father ‘served in many of the big campaigns of course’ leads the reader to think that Ray Jackson was flying from war-front to war-front for the six years of the War, when really he had one posting overseas to Borneo and New Guinea repairing and salvaging aircraft. This was dangerous and critical work in itself so why didn’t Professor Jackson Pulver just tell her interviewers this? Why did she feel the need to embellish it?

We are only raising this point because in our work in exposing those who we believe are ‘fakes’ - Professor Dennis Foley, Professor Bruce Pascoe and Professor Jaky Troy (Why do the alleged ‘fakes’ seem to be Professors?) - one thing our researchers notice is that they all describe their ancestry by saying they have ‘connections’ with certain Aboriginal tribes - they never actually say, “I am the cousin of such-and-such well known, genuine Aboriginal person”. They also all start to spin and embellish stories, and stretch the narrative, about their real family experiences. In Professor Jackson Pulver’s case, yes, her father has a connection to Wagga Wagga and yes, Wagga Wagga is in Wiradjuri country - but he wasn’t born there, but rather spent time at an RAAF camp there in the war. And yes, he did serve overseas once, in the Borneo campaign, but he did not serve in many other ‘big campaigns of course.’

As our investigations continue, we will show our readers how these two embellishments of real experiences of an ancestor of Professor Jackson Pulver is just the first of many examples of how she successfully turns a real fact into a ‘evidence’ that she is of Wiradjuri descent.

**Figure 14 - Occupations of Raymond Jackson in RAAF, 1941-44.** *Source: ibid page 33 of his service record*

20 March 1941 – Trainee Group V

19 July 1941 – Trainee Rigger

1 Nov 1941 – Flight Rigger

24 Sep 1942 – Fitter HIA

29 Aug 1943 – Aircrew V

1 Nov 1943 – Aircrew VP

16 Dec 1943 – Aircrew 2 (P)

10 Jan 1944 – Aircrew P

31 Aug 1944 – Fitter HA

**Figure 15a - Postings of Raymond Jackson in RAAF, 1941-44.** *Source: ibid page 34 – Showing Posting during WWII 1941-1944* ***on Australian soil***

**Figure 15b (cont) - Postings of Raymond Jackson in RAAF, 1944-45.** *Source: ibid, page 35 – Showing postings during WWII 1944-1945* ***overseas*** *and on Australian soil*

20 March 1941 – Station HQ Parkes (NSW)

28 April 1941 - 3 STT (RAAF School of Technical Training) Ultimo (NSW)

20 July 1941 – No 1 E.S. (RAAF Engineering School) Ascot Vale (NSW)

13 Nov 1941 – No 8 E.F.T.S (RAAF Elementary Flying Training School) Narrandera (NSW)

28 July 1942 – No 1 E.S. (RAAF Engineering School) Ascot Vale (NSW)

1 Oct 1942 – No 2 O.T.U. (RAAF Operational Conversion Unit) Mildura (Victoria)

7 Jan 1943 – 5 R.P.P. (RAAF Reserve Personnel Pool) Bradfield Park (NSW)

8 Jan 1943 – 5 A.D. (RAAF Aircraft Depot) Wagga [Wagga] (NSW)

29 Aug 1943 – No 2 F.T.S (RAAF Flying Training School) Bradfield Park (NSW)

8 Dec 1943 – No 10 E.F.T.S (RAAF Elementary Flying Training School)

8 Apr 1944 – 5 S.F.T.S. (RAAF Service Flying Training School)

1 Jun 1944 – 2 P.D. (RAAF Personal Depot) Bradfield Park (NSW)

12 July 1944 – No 3 P.D. (RAAF Personal Depot)

13 Aug 1944 – 1 R.P.P. (No. 1 Reserve Personnel Pool)

13 Oct 1944 – 26 R.S.U. (No. 26 Repair and Salvage Unit) – See Stat Dec – Overseas service in Borneo & New Guinea

10 Dec 1945 - 2 P.D. (RAAF Personal Depot) (back in Australia)

Figure 16 - Statutory Declaration by Raymond Jackson attesting to his period of overseas service for 15 months in 1944/45 - No. 35539 LAC Jackson R.L. *“I embarked from Australia 10-9-44 and served in Borneo & N.G. and disembarked in Australia 7-12-45 which entitled me to 15 days war service leave.”* *Source: ibid, page 72 – Statutory Declaration*

Ray Jackson then agreed to serve in the Interim Airforce for a few short years after the war ends in 1945 (Figure 17). He then is finally discharged, at his own request, with a “ VG [Very Good?] ‘Character on Discharge’, on 27 September 1948 (Figure 18).

Five years later in 1953, he married Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver’s mother.