Shaking the Mulga

Mulga Belt was the family sheep property where Clem Ditton lived as a newborn and it was the starting point for his explorations into his ancestral origins in Shaking the Mulga.

In this Australian family history, Clem gives the family tree a good shake, as he explores the circumstances that drove his ancestors to leave their homes on the other side of the world to come to this new country.

Improving access to records and the new tool, DNA, accelerated a journey begun more than thirty years ago. They enabled Clem to exhume secrets and to discover a treasure trove of stories about the ordinary and not so ordinary lives of his ancestors.

Shaking the Mulga is also an exploration of the 'Australian story' more generally - a melting pot of cultures and backgrounds interacting with events and changes - set against the backdrop of this colourful and challenging country we call home - already inhabited by its own Indigenous Australians when its new chapter began.

This is also a book that can help us to understand that knowing our past can offer us a greater sense of who we are and our place in the world.