Brenda Matthews has conducted her own truth-telling journey into her family history and is bringing her story to the world in her book, The Last Daughter: A true story of love, loss and reconnection, and her documentary - shown recently at the Australian Consulate in New York.

Brenda, whose maiden name is Simon is a descendant of the Worimi /Biripi people of the midnorth coast. Her parents were happily married, with a large family. Her father, Gary Simon, a pastor, moved from Newcastle to Gilgandra NSW. He was working with the Department of Main Roads and came home from work one day to find his wife distraught. Their seven children had been taken away by NSW Child Welfare.

The year was 1973 and the removal of children by the Aboriginal Protection Board had been formally stopped in 1969. However, as Aboriginal people in NSW are all too well aware, this often indiscriminate and heinous practice was continued under the guise of Child Welfare.

It took five years for these dedicated parents to get their children back home with them again.

Brenda was only two years old when she was removed from her natural family and so had little recollection of the family life with her parents and brothers and sisters.

As she grew she also had little recollection of her life with the foster family with whom she had been placed. She did however remember a little white sister. Her name was Rebecca, and they had been inseparable in this family. Brenda also remembered that "there was love there".

The need to find this family grew and could not be denied.

The documentary is the story of the journey Brenda's life has taken her. She has love for all of her family, including the people she found herself with as a baby through what emerges as a whim of the bureaucrats in the Child Welfare Department. There was no good reason for her removal, or that of her siblings, to happen.

This documentary did not leave a dry eye in the room. One can only imagine what this has been like for the people involved over all these years. Two broken-hearted families. The person to initiate the truth telling journey and the healing is Brenda. There is way in which Brenda has carried twice the trauma, and she does this with immense grace.

Ultimately this is an uplifting story because of Brenda. Her respect for her mother had her ask her permission to find her other family. Her foster father says to camera "Well, I'm only here (being interviewed) because of Brenda" and it is clear that he and his wife love her as their own daughter.

Brenda's message of the need for all people to "walk together" is powerful and promising. She is taking that to Chicago, Boston and Washington DC on this tour.

Dr Victoria Grieves Williams is Warraimaay from the midnorth coast of NSW and an historian.