Bill Barton has journeyed halfway around the world, across generations and back more than 115 years to learn about his family's role in the creation of Australia.
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The great-grandson of Australia's first prime minister, Sir Edmund Barton, he visited Old Parliament House on Wednesday to see records related to his forebear held by the National Archives.
A solicitor in the English city of Leeds, Mr Barton used the opportunity of a conference in Sydney to research his family's role in the journey to Australian Federation and early civic life.
Along with his wife and children, Mr Barton said he was moved by seeing the original documents and artefacts, including Edmund Barton's 1891 draft of the Australian constitution - a link to his own vocation as a solicitor.
"Looking at this precious document, you can see it was clearly his passion," he said.
"This is 10 years before 1901 and they were already annotating the printed version, long before Federation was even assured.
"I can really feel that. When we're at court and we're told to follow the judges' pen. I've seen a lot of pictures but to actually see the documents where he's signed the oath, that is quite moving."
The youngest of nine surviving children of William and Mary Louise Barton, Edmund Barton was born in January 1849 in Sydney.
He became a barrister in 1871 before being elected to the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in 1879.
A leading advocate of Australian Federation in the 1890s, he described the potential for the combined colonies as a new nation "which will one day be the envy of the world".
Eventually named prime minister on Christmas Eve 1900, Edmund Barton oversaw the first government, the first federal election and the opening of federal Parliament in May 1901.
He served as prime minister until September 1903, resigning to become a foundation justice of the High Court of Australia.
Edmund and Jane Barton's second son, William Alfred Barton, left Sydney to take up a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford in the early 1900s, before fighting in World War I and raising his family in Sydney.
His son, Edmund John Barton, was Bill Barton's father.
"I know it is very old fashioned way to see things but if you follow the male line, I am the direct line of the family, because the elder children either died or didn't have children," Mr Barton said.
After meeting National Archives Director-General David Fricker, the family toured Parliament House, including seeing the historic Queens Table, ink stand and pen used by Queen Victoria when she signed the Royal Assent to the Australian Commonwealth in 1900 and Norman Carter's portrait of Sir Edmund.
"For me, it's not just a family connection. There's also a professional connection," Mr Barton said.
"It's genuinely moving to feel you've had some part and a connection with a country."
