00:02Tracing through generations of Aboriginal family history has become Ali Abdullah Hifold's life's work.
00:10People will come in and say, here's my mother's name, here's my father's name, give me my family history.
00:16During his almost three decades working at the South Australian Museum,
00:21he's helped thousands discover family members they never knew.
00:25We've had stolen generation members come in. I've showed them photos of their mother before that they've never seen.
00:32They were taken and adopted into a white family.
00:35Using the museum's extensive Aboriginal genealogy collection dating back centuries,
00:41finding matches is intensive and urgent work.
00:45I think now these younger generations, if we don't capture that data now
00:49and that information from those elders, then it's lost.
00:52The museum houses the largest and most comprehensive collection of Australian Aboriginal cultural material in the world.
01:00What's on display here is only a small portion, with tens of thousands of items stored in the archives.
01:07Kaurna elder Tim Aegis says the demand for answers is only growing.
01:11The rediscovery of family and family networks and groups is very overwhelming and very traumatising and very emotional.
01:22The work of Ali has been central to it all.
01:25Ali is one of the key information centres, you know, he's a walking archive himself.
01:32Strength is in with our family and community and to be able to pass on that knowledge to those young
01:38people makes them strong.
01:39kiedy has been on our faith.
01:45физische
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