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Research in Other Countries => Australia => Topic started by: BridgetM on Saturday 26 July 25 16:48 BST (UK)
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I have a newspaper article, dated 13 December 1985 (written by Diane Amery), about a Machell who married in 1965 in Sydney, then discovered that he’d actually married his twin sister, both adopted by different families.
The story has since been in a couple of newspaper articles in the US, but with a lot less information than the original article, which included photos of the couple. Apparently, the Australian government had considered charging them with incest.
Is there anyway I can find out which branch of my Australian Machells adopted the boy? (I do know his name, as well as the name of his wife.)
Thanks!
Bridget Machell
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What do adoptees put for parent’s names on the marriage certificate? The adoptive parents?
I don’t see a 1965 marriage. (If annulled do they get removed from the register?)
Is there a contemporaneous article in Trove?
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I think the article was published on 17 December 1985. I don't have the actual newspaper article but it was quoted in a scientific article.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/8BB739BAC52AAA2F1BB3227D74CF0947/S1832427400009002a.pdf/opposite-sex-twins-when-they-marry-research-reviews-familial-twinning-twin-study-of-food-neophobia-and-monozygotic-twins-discordant-for-phenotypic-sex-human-interest-the-cave-of-romulus-and-remus-twin.pdf
Maybe they used false names for the publication?
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I have the actual article, complete with photos. It’s possible they used fake names? But why they’d choose an unusual surname, that nobody pronounces correctly, I don’t know?
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It's possible given the sensitive nature of the matter. It's interesting that the article featured in London and years later in the US, but not in Australia.
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It's possible given the sensitive nature of the matter. It's interesting that the article featured in London and years later in the US, but not in Australia.
It was mentioned in an article about twins in "The Sunday Times" (Perth WA), 11 Dec 2005.
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It's possible given the sensitive nature of the matter. It's interesting that the article featured in London and years later in the US, but not in Australia.
It was mentioned in an article about twins in "The Sunday Times" (Perth WA), 11 Dec 2005.
Are you able to access this article?
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This case shows how stupid Governments have been over the years about keeping quiet about being open about the origins of Adoptees. They know who the mother is. UNLESS THE CHILD WAS A TRUE FOUNDLING AND ABANDONED. They should be insisting that children put up for adoption have both parents named, and paternity of father proven by D.N.A. before they all allowed to be placed for adoption., to stop this from happening again in the future - AND IT WILL! unless steps are taken to stop it!
England knew for years that there were, in the region of 260 incestuous marriages of close relationships per year, before they allowed Adoptees the right to have sight of their records. This did not mean that they could, or would find the birth mother; and if they did locate her - would she give them the name of their father. Or in fact, did she know who he was? It could have been a 'One Night Stand', impregnation at a drunken party of more than one partner., or rape.
I hope this is a salutary lesson to Governments in the future, who think condemning the Victims of this appalling case, was instigated solely by poor, blinkered decisions of narrow minded Government officials passing badly thought out laws that have had this disastrous effect on two innocence Victims who had no means of knowing they were going to be embroiled in such a heinous legal wrangle they had no idea would happen to them.
The British Government knew that we had, in the region of 260 cases of incest per year by the time they changed the Adoption rules in 1975/6.
I was born in the town that my father in law lived in, at the time I was born. It is possible that he could have been my father! NOT FAR FETCHED. HE HAD LIVED ONLY STREETS AWAY FROM MY MOTHER'S ADDRESS, AND POSSSIBLY WENT TO THE SAME SCHOOL AS HER.
He and his father moved 40 miles south, after the death of his mother...into the same district that I had been adopted into!
In retrospect, and after I was told about my adoption....I still had no idea where I had been born, and so was completely 'In the dark' that I could have been dating my half-brother! The differences in our religion bore no help or assistance that we were, or not related, as it was changed at the time of adoption, so that this wouldn't have given me any hint that we 'could' have been siblings. Facts can be far stranger than fictions.
We need more discussions and programmes of complexity of relationships in our present loose moralled, (and the need for instant gratification), world that we are living in; where lust, 'one night stands' and where any and every emotional feeling should be expressed and explored, without fear of consequence, needs to be highlighted and discussed, in a more open and adult manner to advise, instruct and warn our young, and not so young, of the dangers of creating new life without thinking of what the 'knock on effects' that this could, and can happen, as the result a night of passion or lust, without properly thinking it through in a responsible and adult manner.
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It was mentioned in an article about twins in "The Sunday Times" (Perth WA), 11 Dec 2005.
Are you able to access this article?
I have a transcript of the article through NewsBank (accessed by the eresources of the Australian National Library and the NSW State Library - my membership of both gives me access from home.) Happy to send you a copy, though it doesn't give any other new information - it is quoting the 1985 article in The Sun which was researched by Dr Nancy SEGAL for her books "Entwined Lives" and "Indivisible by Two".
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Thanks, I have seen the article. Amazing that governments can make laws that are meant to protect, and then years later try to prosecute innocents who were embroiled and trapped in a nightmare, not of their own making....but by the stupidity of lawmakers, not having the foresight into pre-empting possibilities that could exist in the future, by their shortsightedness and/or need to try and protect others they may know, who would not be happy with their private lives being made public.
Many of the old laws were made to protect the interests of Royalty/Land Owners/Rich Influentials to ensure that their lives and interests were not affected in any adverse way.
Now we have DNA, there should be no hiding place; but everything should be in place, in the first instance to ensure that the Adoptees are totally protected from every angle being put in place to stop such instances create a situation of marrying a sibling/half sibling/absent parent or child -AS is possible..and not as far fetched as could be thought, when the topic is first broached!