Dr Geoffrey Eric (‘Geoff’) Ford died on Sunday 21st June, 2020, aged 81.
I am sorry for the loss experienced by those close to Dr Ford.
I would advise Geoff’s widow, Lee Ford, sons Duncan and Justin Ford, and brother Stuart Ford that while the following is completely factual, it my be unpleasant to read.
According the Geoff’s Facebook Profile, he was a self described “Bushman, Outdoor Heritage educator, Professional researcher,” who “proved traditional ancestors of Aboriginal cousins from Hawkesbury, Blue Mountains, Wollombi Ranges and Central Coast were Darkinyung-speaking people who had been falsely labelled circa 1990 as “Darug.”
Curiously this Facebook Profile purporting to be that of deceased 81 year old Geoff, is written in both past tense, and in third person.
Prior to retiring, and delving more deeply into historical ‘research’ Dr Ford had published two academic papers;
and
It’s an indictment on Dr Ford’s own area of expertise if he was unable to recognise Mr Warren Whitfield’s true nature and intent.
2002
We can be more confident the following is a true reflection of the real Geoff, sourced from the Hawkesbury Family History Group Meeting News website dated
14th August 2002.
Geoff describes identifying with the outdoors and with animals so much, he “became a veterinarian and later a lecturer then a specialist pathobiologist in my professional occupation,”
.Geoff describes his love of bushwalking and camping, even taking people on “outdoor heritage activities.”
Geoff goes on to describe how a 2001 discovery while researching his own genealogy fascinated him, discovering he may be a descendant of John and Ruth Ford of Wilberforce!
‘Professional researcher’ Geoff goes on to lament, “Help! Just how many John Fords were there there then!! (sic))
Geoff introduces his readers to what he refers to as one of his ‘theories’ but which can be more accurately described as a conspiracy theory.
You see, I have the theory that my cousins who did that research may have covered up a scandal that my grandmother was her eldest sister’s daughter. Then there’s the 1820s Medhurst connection, and the question of the arrival around the 1830s of Dengate and Trench ancestors.
For the purposes of my own research, I was drawn to the following:
Here we find possibly the earliest example of the claim James Webb had a common law wife at Brisbane Water from whom some of the ‘present Aboriginal Guringai people are descended’.
No references are given, the statement is presented as established fact. Same goes for the term “present Aboriginal Guringai people,” by which Geoff can only be referring to members of the deeply problematic Guringai Tribal Link.
Given that Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation was not created until 2003, by Warren Whitfield, it seems extremely likely Mr Whitfield was the uncited source of the false narrative that Geoff would, as he states, “add to my research.”
2009
Mutiny in the Ku-Ring-Gai Historical Society!
The October 2009 issue of the societies newsletter drops this bombshell:
Indeed which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
2010
The publication of Dr Geoff Ford’s Darkiñung recognition ; identifying the aborigines to the west and north of Sydney.
It’s only a matter of time before an enterprising student makes the time to really give ‘Ford’s Thesis’ (as it become colloquially referred as by Directors and Members of Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation and its subsidiaries)the academic rinsing it surely needs. Thankfully that student will not be me, and we will only lightly examine what will sadly be Geoff Ford’s legacy.
I will say that for a thesis, let alone one from a reputable institution as the University of Sydney, it certainly does seem to be quite openly an exercise in petty spite.
Dr Ford seems overly preoccupied with fellow academic, one Dr James Kohen.
With 742 uses of “Kohen” it starts to become a name you expect to see on each page, like a ‘Where’s Wally’ hidden feature to alleviate the wild swings from Cultural indignance to unparalleled tedium. Some choice examples (having read the text and subsequently lost years of my life and a portion of my soul) are as follows:
Sorry Nan, your people and culture passed down through generations was made up by some guy named Kohen in the 1990’s. Yeah I know it doesn’t make sense, but this non-Aboriginal guy named Ford wrote it down. No not the car guy, but yeah he was a crook racist too.
The charismatic, and mesmerizing Dr Kohn is credited with inspiring the topic of Ford’s thesis, then accused of trying to restrain this wild rebel, but didn’t know who he was dealing with.
Ford goes on to detail in eerie detail how during ‘drinks‘ (coffee? not THIS Dr Ford) with Dr Kohen on Friday 5 October 2007, in which “Kohen insisted that my (Ford) independent findings could not be correct because he had decided that the Hawkesbury Aborigines were Dharug from Blacktown
Seriously Kohen is just like a total Samantha, you know?
The exact number of drinks consumed either before, during, or after this supposed interaction is not mentioned, and will sadly remain another unanswered question for future historians to ponder over.
Dr Ford is engaging in a very clear ad hominum attack, a means of attempting to bolster his own argument/hypothesis by attacking the credibility of the ‘opposition.’ It’s the stuff of gutter politics and shock jocks, and is quite unusual in an academic paper. But then Dr Ford was a rebel. Further gems include, but are no way limited to:
A scorned lover would demonstrate less vitriol as fills the demonstration of Mastery of the Arts.
Next the title: Darkiñung recognition ; identifying the aborigines to the west and north of Sydney. It is amazing to me that this was able to be published so recently as 13 years ago. For the record please do not refer to us as ‘aborigines.’ Please correct any students from making this error, as I have occasionally down with non-Aboriginal primary aged children. If seeing this word used 1,161 times (not in simply in quotations from racists of yesteryear, but in the authors own voice) affects you as it does me, this thesis may not be for you.
More restraint is shown with only 21 applications of the term ‘halfcaste’ by the author, and only a single of of the n-word.
To be fair what else are you supposed to call a Minstrel Show. oh…
More insidiously racist is the selective use by this White Author of some voices (that in the case of the so-called ‘modern day Guringai, are not once cited or given reference to) that seemed to give any credence to the author’s wild claims, while silencing, denigrating, and ‘correcting’ the lived experience and passed down knowledge of thousands of existing Aboriginal People.
At no point does Dr Ford provide any notation at all for how he knows what he knows about these people and their claims; despite clear evidence of past associations with first Warren Whitfield, and a clear repetition of the claims made in Mr Whitfield’s 2001 interview (found elsewhere on the site). creator of so-called Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation, and later with Tracey-Lee Howie and others from the Directorial Team. Curious stuff.
The word ‘Guringai‘; a name invented by a While Man to apply to an Aboriginal Language, has it’s first recorded misapplication as a Clan/Tribe/Nation/Territorial designation in the rambling words of Mr Warren Whitfield, in the halcyon days of 2001. Yet this word appears in Dr Ford’s thesis 39 times – and each time associated with an unsubstantiated claim made by Mr Whitfield (see Chapter 1 – 2001).
Not one of these claims are clarified, elucidated on, or authenticated.
Not one of these claims is referenced in an academic manner which would allow us to know how and why the author believes the assertions made in the thesis.
It’s a bizarre read from an academic standpoint, and a racist culturally unsafe document from an the perspective of an Aboriginal Person. I’ve done the really hard word of reading this tripe so others may not need to, but here is every single mention of ‘Guringai’:
That’s it, every uncritical acceptance and repetition of the false claims of psuedo-Aboriginal Man Warren Whitfield, first recorded only 9 years prior.
This is as close as Dr Ford get to explaining to explaining his repeated assertions that the People of Broken Bay are one and the same with some so-called modern descendant. Dr Ford never explains who they are, how/why he believes they are descendants of any Aboriginal person, let alone how/why he believes they are descendant’s of Bungaree.
It is a glaring omission to never once in any of the repeated claims dressed as fact, to not once mention where the information came from.
Severe academic misconduct, or maybe something else?
2011
The February 2011 edition of Hawkesbury Family History Group Meeting News has a list of interesting historical websites to check out. One of the 9 websites is Guringai Family Story – Warren Whitfield (Sophy Bungaree was born in Brisbane Water abt 1810).
2013
In the April 13, 2013 issue of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society newsletter, we find Dr Geoff Ford writing, as a White Man, to inform his readers that it was actually politically correct to use the word Guringai.
Oddly Dr Ford refers to recent research in order to make a point, but fails to mention that the research is his own, and the point is he trying to make is a repetition of repetitive claims in his Masters Thesis (Namely that Kohen and all the actual Aboriginal People, their memories, stories and ancestors are incorrect, and Dr Ford is here to set us all right).
Dr Ford then make the baseless claim (without providing any evidence) the Wannungine were the original Aboriginal ‘Tribe’ of the coast from the Hunter River to Broken Bay.
Dr Ford goes on to discuss my Apical Ancestor Biddy Lewis, in relation to a tour Dr Ford recently took with knowledgeable and respected local amateur historian Tom Richmond.
As if Bungaree and his Mob fleeing the devastation wrought by the impact of European arrival was just a weekend trip down the coast.
Despite not quite getting Biddy’ Lewis’ name correct, a least this point Dr Ford is correctly identifying a paternal relationship between Biddy and Bungaree.
In an interesting side note, the June 2021 edition of the Ku-ring-gai Historical Society Newsletter, features President Lorna Watt setting the record straight in regard to the assertions of Dr Ford and the Directors and Members of Guringai Tribal Link Aboriginal Corporation.
Addendum. Using threats of court action to stifle critique
Addendum. A new perspective on Laurence Paul Allen’s thesis…
Truth-telling from a neurodiverse perspective. 
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