Is Dan Andrews Running with a 'Fake Aborigine' this Election? - We Shall See - Part 1
As we described in our opening post, a furore is developing prior to the Victorian November 26 State election regarding Labor's candidate for the crucial marginal seat of Richmond, Lauren O’Dwyer.
The legitimacy of O’Dwyer’s Aboriginality is alleged to have been challenged by various Aboriginal groups (Source: The Age).
Now, we don’t know one way or the other at this stage whether Lauren O’Dwyer is of Yorta Yorta Aboriginal descent by her great-grandfather as she claims, or not (Source: The Age).
This post however, is designed to try to inform the voters of Victoria in general, and the voters of O’Dwyer’s electorate of Richmond in particular, as to what the records show regarding the ancestry claims of Lauren O’Dwyer.
Do the ancestry records of Lauren O’Dywer’s family show that her great-grandfather was a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man or not?
We shall see.
But first a disclaimer. As we have emphasised before in our posts on the ‘Deep Fake Project’, the genealogical investigations that we are doing at Dark Emu Exposed are not about ‘character assassinations’ of particular people for political or any other purposes. What they are about, to use the modern parlance is ‘social justice’ - there is something deeply offensive, immoral and unethical about someone who tries to appropriate another person’s or group’s identity and culture without their consent. This is especially galling when the imposter successfully gains a financial, occupational or other benefit at the expense of the person or group they have impersonated.
We are not saying at this stage that Lauren O’Dwyer is one of these imposters, just that there seems to be many allegations by real Yorta Yorta Aboriginal people themselves that they do not believe that she is in fact of Yorta Yorta descent. In the normal course of life Lauren O’Dwyer would be completely within her rights to identify anyway she wishes. As her fellow Victorians, we would support her in those wishes.
However, the moment anyone, including Lauren O’Dwyer, puts out their hand for special taxpayer funded benefits, they need to satisfy their fellow Victorians that they indeed qualify for those special benefits. When we go to the post-office and apply for a passport, we don’t ‘self-identify’ as an Australian citizen and expect the postmaster to hand over a passport - the postmaster, acting on behalf of our government, demands we supply birth certificates and other documentation proving that we are who we say we are, and that we are in fact Australian.
It would be so easy for Lauren O’Dwyer to present the ancestry documentation that shows that her great-grandfather was a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man as she claims - indeed it is incumbent on her to show the voters of Richmond that she has this documentation and thus she satisfies the Commonwealth Government’s 3-Part Rule for Aboriginality.
Lauren O’Dwyer is putting her hand out to apply for the taxpayer funded electoral seat of Richmond based on her claims that she is a ‘proud Yorta Yorta’ Aboriginal woman - it is crucial that the voters of Richmond are confident that this is in fact true.
To date, neither the ALP, nor their candidate, have provided publicly any independently-researched, ancestry documentation to support her claim that her great-grandfather was a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man.
To assist the voters of Richmond we will endeavour to provide the family history research and documentation that shows, one way or the other, if Lauren O’Dwyer’s great-grandfather was a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal man.
In this first web-post we track the male line of Lauren O’Dwyer’s mother, Denise Joy McInnes (nee Hay) These men were from a long family line named ‘Hay’ as indicated in Figure 1.
All these men were born in Australia and had ancestral roots back to a Robert Hay who was born in Scotland in 1774. [See Note 1 further reading below].
We could find no record of any of these ‘Hay’ men describing themselves, or being described by others, as Aboriginal or Yorta Yorta.
The next genealogical research steps that we are now undertaking are to determine the ancestry of all the women who married these ‘Hay’ men. If one or more of these women were of Aboriginal descent then Lauren O’Dwyer would be correct to claim Aboriginal descent for herself.
But if none of these women were Aboriginal, then her maternal great-grandfather, John Stanley Hay, who was born in Kyneton in 1915, would not be Aboriginal.
Our investigations would then need to move to the ancestry of Lauren’s father to see if there is any Aboriginal descent in that family branch.
Figure 1 - Alleged and preliminary male line in the the maternal family tree branch of ALP candidate Lauren O’Dwyer. This male line leads back to an original ancestry in Scotland. (Sources: publicly available records)
Notes & Further Reading
Lauren O’Dwyer’s ancestor, her 6x great-grandfather was a member of Victoria’s ‘convict royalty.’ Robert Hay was a convict who was transported to Victoria on the ship the Calcutta. This colonising fleet, under the command of Lt David Collins, was sent out in 1803 to establish Victoria’s first British settlement at Sorrento, just inside Port Phillip Bay. The settlement was short-lived as Collins ultimately decided to relocate to Van Dieman’s Land and set up the new colony where Hobart stands today.
An interesting family history of Lauren O’Dwyer’s Scottish ancestor can be read here
A photograph purporting to be of a gathering of Lauren O’Dwyer’s family and friends including her mum is available online - Lauren appears to be at the far right (with her daughter?) and Denise Joy McInnes (nee Hay) is believed to be in the middle of the happy family group. We are not sure how many of these family members identify as Yorta Yorta.
Figure 2 - Lauren O’Dwyer (far right) with her mum and family and friends. (Source )
