Submitted by Paul Daley on
Frank Sinclair’s letters from the front are the earliest known by an Indigenous digger. More than a century later, they – and his family – have been uncovered
About six years ago, Aboriginal health worker and former army reservist Daniel Dawson began searching for more detail about his Indigenous heritage. Like so many Indigenous people seeking answers about their ancestry, he began with his nan, Marion. Then in her late 70s, she suggested he speak to his cousin, Grant Higgins, who was more familiar with the family’s ancestry. That fortuitous conversation led to an extraordinary awakening for Dawson.
He was descended, Higgins told him, from Frank Leighton Sinclair, a Yuin man who was one of the two equal-first Aboriginal servicemen to fight for the British empire. Sinclair, who at 28 served with the 1st NSW Mounted Rifles, sailed for the Boer war from Wooloomooloo on the Southern Cross on 17 January 1900. And this meant Dawson was of Yuin and Dharawal heritage, not Wurundjeri, as he’d always thought.
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