When Ellen Kelly was jailed in Melbourne, it was Hamilton's company she sought.

Briggs, a Taungwurung-Yorta Yorta woman, who was raised by her grandparents and extended family at the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve in NSW, has spent a lot of time doing cultural research into her family line.

Her grandparents travelled in a wagon around NSW with their large family out of fear their children would be forcibly removed.

By the time the children reached school age, Briggs' grandmother took the children and settled at the reserve so they could be safe.

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However, her grandfather, a fair-skinned Yorta Yorta man who had an Irish father, was not allowed to live with his family at the reserve, as dictated by federal law at the time.

"My grandmother had to rear the children on her own with the help of her mother," Briggs said.

The children had to have permission to leave the reserve so they could see their father.

The transgenerational trauma stayed with Briggs' mother through her married life.

"I've seen it through my family, where I saw that pain it caused my mother not having seen her father, yet she knew he was out there," Briggs said.

"I can feel her pain because I witnessed it. She never really spoke about it, but certain times when she did ... there were times you felt the pain, and knew the pain, because of the way she spoke."

Briggs passes down stories through writing or her artworks for her grandchildren and sons about her mother.

"It's very hard," she said. "I don't want to make it all fluffy. I still want to be able to tell them truth about what happened."

Briggs has two sons, six grandchildren, one great-grandchild and another great-grandchild on the way.

On the topic of reconciliation, she said she was sceptical about change because issues being protested 40 years ago, such as deaths in custody, continue to happen.

But she is hopeful a new government will bring about change like fulfilling the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full.

"I'm hopeful but I'm not going to make any assumptions," Briggs said.

Speaking at the Reconciliation Week flag-raising ceremony in Albury, Aboriginal woman Ruth Davys said attendance at events was growing.

"I think the more people we see the better the future will look," she said.

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