I don’t know much about my paternal grandfather Edward McKinnon and his family. He was the son of a Charles McKinnon, about whom my genealogical research has not been able to find anything until he married my great-grandmother Amelia Newman. Charles McKinnon, family lore has it, came from the Biripi mob of aboriginals with his brothers to make their fortune. It would explain the lack of documentation about him as the aboriginals tried to stay under the radar and avoided registration of any of their activities unless they needed food. When my mother, father and I went up to the Biripi to seek out these lost ancestors, we stated who my father’s grandfather was: ie Charles McKinnon, and the head of the council there said ”we wondered what happened to your mob when you went down to Sydney”. The Biripi is full of McKinnons and Marrs and Clarkes, the other names used by our bloodline. Family lore has it that the McKinnon name comes from a Beatrice Mary McKinnon, a servant girl, who was shipwrecked off the North Coast, found her way to the Biripi at Purfleet near Taree and “married” into the tribe. Her boys took their mother’s name, as is the custom for these people. It is evident just by looking at my brothers that there is a strong aboriginal ancestry in my family, and it has always been acknowledged that despite the blue eyes and straight short sharp nose that pop up in about a quarter of the family, that my paternal grandfather was perhaps 1/2 aboriginal, if you want to put a figure on it. Perhaps the blue eyes come from Beatrice.
The blue eyes and “Celtic” nose came in handy during WWII. Edward McKinnon, my paternal grandfather, enlisted in the army and was sent to fight the Japanese. He was taken prisoner and worked as a prisoner of war on the Burmese Railway, dying in June 1943. His mates who survived say that his death was remarkable: He knew he was dying of beriberi, (lack of vitamin B due to the mostly rice diet) and he desperately tried to hang on until his son’s (ie my father Robert) 11th birthday on the 26 June. He then attacked the guards, killing several of them before he himself was killed. According to his mates, he died a hero’s death.
He was lucky in his appearance, and passed as a white man, and just as well, because the government in their infinite wisdom decreed that despite equal work, aboriginal soldiers (as well as ordinary workers of the time) were paid a pittance compared to their co-workers. His widow received the war widow’s pension until she remarried in 1957.
His wife, my paternal grandmother, was a Nellie May Wood, the daughter of Bernard Wood and Alice Cannon. Alice Cannon was descended from farming stock who migrated to Australia (unlike most of my ancestors from Great Britain, who had no choice in the matter). Despite being able to trace Alice’s ancestry from migrants, she was aboriginal – she was tattooed. This she kept secret however she identified herself as an Urala aboriginal and I remember seeing the tattoos only once when she was a very old woman. I think the link is her grandfather Michael William Cannon., who appeared from nowhere and coincidentally is listed in the aboriginal database on the genealogical website that I have been using to find my ancestors’ origins.
Alice married Bernard Wood: another person with a murky background. His parents George and Annie appear in the registers when they start to have children. We do know that Bernard was half aboriginal and half Chinese. He spoke fluent Mandarin and Shanghai dialects of Chinese, and taught my father to speak them when he was a boy. However he abjured my father to keep the ability to speak Chinese a secret – only his wife knew, no-one else in the family, not even his daughters. My father was very close to his grandfather and often accompanied him on his work for the Water Board, and socialised with the Chinese market gardeners with whom he had dealings, using his knowledge of Chinese to talk with them. The only photos I have of my great grandfather are when he was an old man, but I am told the eyes were not particularly Chinese, as can happen. The pairing of aboriginal and Chinese was a common one – the Chinese often sought mates from the aboriginal people.
The story of Alice and Bernard meeting is romantic. Her father did well enough to send Alice to a convent. She did not like it, and ran away back to home. She arrived home and proceeded to cook lunch for the men when they came home for lunch, as if nothing had happened. Her brothers worked close by and Alice was taking them their lunch every day when she met Bernard Wood who was a blacksmith working nearby.
Interestingly two of Alice’s sisters married two of Bernard’s brothers: thus created a large number of double cousins.
Alice died the year my daughter Elizabeth Issa was born, 1974. At that point she was a great-great-grandmother to Elizabeth and several others in the family.
So with Alice Cannon aboriginal enough to have been tattooed (a custom amongst some aboriginal tribes) and Bernard Wood half aboriginal and half Chinese, their children (all daughters) were approximately ¼ to ½ aboriginal. My aunt Joyce, for example had no underarm or pubic hair – a common trait amongst aboriginals, the Chinese also having little body hair. This hairless is a trait that has been passed down the generations and luckily for me I have as well.
We estimate that the children of Nellie May Wood and Edward McKinnon would have been about ¼ to ½ aboriginal, if you care to put a figure on it. It was enough for the children to be wary of the government inspectors who took half caste children away to be reared in homes and trained as servants – when they were in the area, the children were told to hide. This nasty custom was considered to be advantageous for the children as it gave them a “better” start in life; however it deprived them of their families, often forever. My family was lucky to not have any children in the Stolen Generation.
The blue eyes and “Celtic” nose came in handy during WWII. Edward McKinnon, my paternal grandfather, enlisted in the army and was sent to fight the Japanese. He was taken prisoner and worked as a prisoner of war on the Burmese Railway, dying in June 1943. His mates who survived say that his death was remarkable: He knew he was dying of beriberi, (lack of vitamin B due to the mostly rice diet) and he desperately tried to hang on until his son’s (ie my father Robert) 11th birthday on the 26 June. He then attacked the guards, killing several of them before he himself was killed. According to his mates, he died a hero’s death.
He was lucky in his appearance, and passed as a white man, and just as well, because the government in their infinite wisdom decreed that despite equal work, aboriginal soldiers (as well as ordinary workers of the time) were paid a pittance compared to their co-workers. His widow received the war widow’s pension until she remarried in 1957.
His wife, my paternal grandmother, was a Nellie May Wood, the daughter of Bernard Wood and Alice Cannon. Alice Cannon was descended from farming stock who migrated to Australia (unlike most of my ancestors from Great Britain, who had no choice in the matter). Despite being able to trace Alice’s ancestry from migrants, she was aboriginal – she was tattooed. This she kept secret however she identified herself as an Urala aboriginal and I remember seeing the tattoos only once when she was a very old woman. I think the link is her grandfather Michael William Cannon., who appeared from nowhere and coincidentally is listed in the aboriginal database on the genealogical website that I have been using to find my ancestors’ origins.
Alice married Bernard Wood: another person with a murky background. His parents George and Annie appear in the registers when they start to have children. We do know that Bernard was half aboriginal and half Chinese. He spoke fluent Mandarin and Shanghai dialects of Chinese, and taught my father to speak them when he was a boy. However he abjured my father to keep the ability to speak Chinese a secret – only his wife knew, no-one else in the family, not even his daughters. My father was very close to his grandfather and often accompanied him on his work for the Water Board, and socialised with the Chinese market gardeners with whom he had dealings, using his knowledge of Chinese to talk with them. The only photos I have of my great grandfather are when he was an old man, but I am told the eyes were not particularly Chinese, as can happen. The pairing of aboriginal and Chinese was a common one – the Chinese often sought mates from the aboriginal people.
The story of Alice and Bernard meeting is romantic. Her father did well enough to send Alice to a convent. She did not like it, and ran away back to home. She arrived home and proceeded to cook lunch for the men when they came home for lunch, as if nothing had happened. Her brothers worked close by and Alice was taking them their lunch every day when she met Bernard Wood who was a blacksmith working nearby.
Interestingly two of Alice’s sisters married two of Bernard’s brothers: thus created a large number of double cousins.
Alice died the year my daughter Elizabeth Issa was born, 1974. At that point she was a great-great-grandmother to Elizabeth and several others in the family.
So with Alice Cannon aboriginal enough to have been tattooed (a custom amongst some aboriginal tribes) and Bernard Wood half aboriginal and half Chinese, their children (all daughters) were approximately ¼ to ½ aboriginal. My aunt Joyce, for example had no underarm or pubic hair – a common trait amongst aboriginals, the Chinese also having little body hair. This hairless is a trait that has been passed down the generations and luckily for me I have as well.
We estimate that the children of Nellie May Wood and Edward McKinnon would have been about ¼ to ½ aboriginal, if you care to put a figure on it. It was enough for the children to be wary of the government inspectors who took half caste children away to be reared in homes and trained as servants – when they were in the area, the children were told to hide. This nasty custom was considered to be advantageous for the children as it gave them a “better” start in life; however it deprived them of their families, often forever. My family was lucky to not have any children in the Stolen Generation.
The first photo is of Alice Cannon and Bernard Wood as an old couple, and the second is of their daughter Nellie May as a young girl.
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