Through My Grandmother’s Eyes is a powerful, evidence-based family history that traces the extraordinary life of May Smallwood (Gordon) and the Santo family across three nations, England, Australia, and ancient Aboriginal Country. Drawing on decades of archival research, government surveillance records, DNA analysis, and oral histories, author and cultural historian William C. Santo reveals how his grandmother and her descendants survived one of the most extensive systems of racial control ever imposed in modern Australia. Far from passive victims, May and her family developed sophisticated strategies of resistance, cultural preservation, and survival under the Aboriginal Protection Acts, including decades of wage control, forced labour, and constant monitoring. Beginning with a Yorkshire metalworker’s migration to the Queensland goldfields in the 1870s and his union with a Jangga woman of deep cultural authority, the book documents the convergence of European industrial knowledge with tens of thousands of years of Aboriginal wisdom. At its heart is the story of Aboriginal women who safeguarded kinship, law, and identity while living under surveillance that extended well into the 1960s. This revised second edition presents newly uncovered government documents that fundamentally challenge accepted narratives of post-war “freedom” for Aboriginal people. It is both a personal family history and a vital contribution to Australia’s truth-telling, offering an unflinching account of resilience, intelligence, and cultural continuity against all odds