I’m Naomi Parry Duncan. I tell stories of places and people, and love museums, archives, buildings, images and landscapes. My specialties are social history, Aboriginal history, digital history and family history, and editing non-fiction. I am the author of Musquito: The real story of a legendary colonial warrior (Allen & Unwin). It is a biography of a remarkable Aboriginal man, of the entwined stories of my English, Welsh and Irish ancestors, and of the landscapes of Sydney, Norfolk Island, Parramatta, Deerubbin, and Tasmania. 

I am an accredited Professional Historian and president of the History Council of NSW. I am affiliated with the University of Tasmania, Western Sydney University, and Purai Global Indigenous History Network. I am vice-chair of the NSW State Records Authority and currently work with the Indigenous Land and Justice Research Centre at UNSW.

As a consulting historian, I have researched everything from Aboriginal history to glow worms and Skippy The Bush Kangaroo. I’ve worked in regional arts in NSW as a cultural development officer and museum manager at Lithgow Council’s gorgeous Eskbank House. I was the NSW historian on the Find & Connect web resource and worked on the Dictionary of Sydney. My first book, written with Brad Manera, Will Davies and Stephen Garton for the NSW Centenary of Anzac, was New South Wales and the Great War (2016).

I’m also an editor and have worked on many articles, theses, and books, as a proofreader, copy-editor, and structural editor. My favourite projects to date have been 100 Atmospheres (2019) and Heidi Norman (ed) Land Back: Aboriginal Land Rights in New South Wales, Today and Always (2025). 

My Orcid Id is https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3139-3997

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