We are Confused - How did the Irish O’Dwyers became a Yorta Yorta Aboriginal Family?- Part 3
Most Victorians would agree that it is a good idea to have a political system where Victorians from Aboriginal backgrounds can freely compete to become state parliamentarians. To this end, Premier Daniel Andrews and the ALP are to be commended for putting forth as the candidate in Richmond, proud Yorta Yorta woman, Lauren O’Dwyer.
Figures 1 - From Lauren O’Dwyer’s Facebook Page.
However, the voters of Victoria in general and those of Richmond in particular need to feel confident that the ‘real deal for Richmond’ is in fact the ‘real deal’ as she and the ALP claim - a Yorta Yorta woman from Echuca.
In Parts 1 and 2 of our genealogical investigation into the claims of Aboriginality made by Lauren O’Dwyer, we have tried really hard to find evidence that she has Aboriginal descent from her mother’s side of the family as she claims. This descent is required to legally comply with the Commonwealth’s 3-part definition of Aboriginality.
Despite the best of our in depth efforts, we could find no evidence in the records that Lauren O’Dwyer is of Aboriginal descent on her mother’s side of the family.
Now maybe our research is wrong for some reason and there is in fact some private and hidden evidence confiming that she is of Aboriginal descent but, as far as we are aware, she has not presented any evidence publicly to allay the fears of those voters in Richmond, and other Aboriginal people, that have their doubts.
In this post we will explore her paternal family tree to see if we can find any evidence of Aboriginality on her father’s side of the family.
Lauren O’Dwyer’s Paternal Family Tree
We have constructed, what we believe in our opinion is, the O’Dwyer Family tree (Figure 2) using the publicly available records such as, the registers of Births, Deaths and Marriages, newspaper reports and Trove.
The O’Dwyer men on Lauren O’Dwyer’s paternal family tree start with her late father, Gavin John O’Dwyer, and then lead in a straight line back to Ireland, to Lauren’s 3X great-grandfather, Thomas Francis O’Dwyer, who was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1847.
Figure 2 - The Alleged Irish O’Dwyer Family of Lauren O’Dwyer. Source: publicly available records
As a proud Yorta Yorta women, Lauren O’Dwyer claims she is of Aboriginal descent by ‘her ancestry to her great-grandfather.’
She could not have talking about her great-grandfather of the O’Dwyer line, Thomas Francis O’Dwyer, who was born in 1903 in the fashionable suburb of Malvern. He only passed away in 1979 and, as far as we could determine, never identified as Aboriginal and did not live culturally or socially as an Aboriginal man. Indeed, his grandfather, Thomas Francis O’Dwyer was a ‘full-blooded’ Irishman, who was recorded on his 1871 marriage certificate as being a miner born in Tipperary, Ireland (Source).
We next turned our research onto the families of the women in Figure 2 who married the O’Dwyer men.
Did any of these women bring Aboriginal ancestry into the Irish O’Dwyer family?
The O’Dwyer Family Women
We researched the families of each of the five women below, who were the wives of the five O’Dwyer men in Figure 1 above.
We found no Aboriginality at all anywhere in the familes of these five women:
Mary Ann Hayes - born in 1848 in Limerick, Ireland - Our research notes here
Agnes Smethurst Ashworth - born in 1875 in Ravenswood, Victoria – Our research notes here
Irene Mary O’Meara - born in 1896 in Ararat, Victoria – Our research notes here (including Stevens family)
Maureen Veronica O’Reilly - born in 1938 in West Coburg - Our research notes here
Denise Joy Hay (Lauren O’Dwyer’s mother) - born around 1963 in Victoria - see Post 1 and Post 2 for full details on the Hay family line and Lauren’s maternal branches of her family tree.
We have located a photograph that is purported to be of the O’Dwyer family patriarch, Thomas Francis O’Dwyer and his family (Figure 3).
The records show that Lauren O’Dwyer is a direct descendent of this Irish ‘mob’ and culturally and socially she appears to many of us to completely fit the description of an ‘Irish lass.’
Confusingly however for many of us voters, the candidate for Richmond is instead presenting herself as a proud Yorta Yorta woman.
Figure 3 - Thomas Francis O’Dwyer, Mary Ann Hayes and Family (date unknown) Source: Ancestry user Familyhistory7008 originally shared this on 19 Apr 2020
Figure 4 - From left - -Yoo-rrook Justice Commission Chairperson, Professor Eleanor Bourke; First Peoples Assembly Co Chair, Marcus Stewart; First Peoples Assembly Co Chair, Aunty Geraldine Atkinson & proud Yorta Yorta woman Lauren O’Dwyer. Source
In our last post, which will follow shortly, we will summarise all our genealogical investigations into the family tree of proud Yorta Yorta woman, Lauren O’Dwyer.
