Matthew Flinders and Bungaree by Helen Tiernan from her series ‘Heroes of Colonial Encounters’. ANMM Collection 00055144 and 00055142.

Blog

Curious about what goes on at the museum? These blogs give you an inside peek.

Discover stories behind the latest exhibitions, fascinating explorations into maritime science and archaeology, and the surprising details of what happens inside (and outside) a modern working museum.

kimanmm

Kim Tao

Kim is the curator of post-Federation immigration at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

Clear all options
Johanna Goggins is one of the Irish famine orphans who is inscribed on the Welcome Wall. Image: Kim Tao/ANMM.

Remembering the Irish famine orphans

17 Mar 2019

Today some 80 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry, including an estimated seven million Australians. For St Patrick’s Day, we take a look at the story of the destitute Irish orphans who arrived in Australia 170 years ago at the height of the Great Famine.

Read more
Threads of migration roof projection in 2019. Image: ANMM.

Threads of migration

26 Jan 2019

Textiles are an evocative symbol of migration, memory and cultural identity. Our new roof projection, Threads of migration, illuminates the museum’s rooftop with a rich patchwork of immigrant stories.

Read more
Şükran and Halit Adasal signing their marriage documents, with Şükran’s mother Sultan Salman at far right, Adana, Turkey, 1966. Reproduced courtesy Hale Adasal.

Anatolia to Australia

23 Jan 2019

Turkish migrant¸ Sükran Adasal was just 19 years old when she and her husband Halit embarked on a belated honeymoon to an island continent on the other side of the world. Travelling under the Australia–Turkey Migration Agreement, the young couple’s thoughts were filled with hope for a new future.

Read more
The O’Keefe family at Bonbeach, Victoria, 1956. Left to right: Annie O’Keefe, Geraldine, John O’Keefe, Peter and Mary. Photographer Neil Murray. Reproduced courtesy National Archives of Australia: A1501, A429/5.

The case of Mrs O’Keefe

22 Jan 2019

In the 1940s, a Dutch East Indies family who had been evacuated to Australia during World War II found themselves under threat of deportation. The infamous court case that ensued was an important step towards overturning controversial legislation banning non-European immigrants.

Read more
Paul Gock Quay in Sydney, c 1910. Reproduced courtesy Paul Kwok.

The Gocks of Middle Mountain

21 Jan 2019

Paul Kwok belongs to the 25th generation of a family that can trace its ancestry back to the early 13th century, before the Mongolian leader Kublai Khan founded the Yuan dynasty and conquered China. Paul registered his grandfather, Gock Quay, on the Welcome Wall to honour the first member of his family to set foot in Australia in 1890.

Read more
5. Jim Stone, his daughter Penelope and grandsons Liam and Ryan at the Sydney memorial to British child migrants, Coming and Going, at the ANMM, 2015. Photographer Kim Tao/ANMM.

The Barnardo boy from Liverpool

20 Jan 2019

During the 20th century, thousands of unaccompanied British children were sent to far-flung parts of the Commonwealth as part of government-sponsored child migration schemes. One of these was Jim Stone, whose childhood hardships in a farm training institution did not prevent him from coming to love his adopted country.

Read more
Klaas and Aafke Woldring on their wedding day, the Netherlands, 1959. Reproduced courtesy Klaas and Aafke Woldring.

To Australia via the Cape

19 Jan 2019

Teenaged sweethearts Klaas and Aafke Woldring have been together for more than 60 years, with their union taking them from the Netherlands to Australia via South Africa and Zambia.

Read more
Magdalena (Leni) Janic, aged 15, Katscher, Germany, 1940. Reproduced courtesy Annette Janic.

War child

18 Jan 2019

In November 1949, 24-year-old Leni Janic left her German homeland with her husband and baby son, hoping a new life in Australia would help to heal the scars of a childhood plagued by poverty, hardship and the devastating legacy of war.

Read more