This year, Mr Hill discovered marks 190 years since British explorer Charles Sturt arrived in the Murrumbidgee region.

In January 1830, Sturt and his party of voyagers reached the intersection of the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers in their collapsible whaleboat.

"I think we do have to recognise that the journey took place," Mr Hill said.

"To me, that was the beginning of the Riverina, or at least what we've come to know it as."

Although history generally records the journey as friendly, Sturt and his journey mates were armed to escalate any potential fight with local Indigenous tribes.

At the Lindsay River junction in Victoria, Sturt recorded in his diary that he was expecting a 'troublesome' encounter and that a 'quarrel' might ensue.

Had it eventuated, historians agree, it would likely have resulted unfavourably for the local population as the British were known to be far overzealous with their weaponry.

Aside from his journey to map the length of the river system, Junee-based historian Graham Elphick believes Sturt may have been one of Australia's first travel writers and tourism agents.

"He interested people in coming here by writing about the opportunities he saw on the rivers," Mr Elphick said.

As a farmer in Junee, Mr Elphick admitted the bounty that presented to Sturt must have been stark to the reality he sees.

"He obviously didn't see [the region] as it has been over the past few years stuck in this drought," Mr Elphick said.

"I would love to go back, even 150 years to see what it was like. It would give us all an appreciation for what the early pioneers went through."

Over the course of investigating his family history, Mr Hill continued to uncover uncanny links to Sturt.

"The Hills all have connections to Sturt, not in a blood sense, but where we've lived," Mr Hill said.

While his great-great-aunt lived at Sturt's Meadow Station near Broken Hill, his great-grandfather set up a sheep farm at Sturt's Billabong in the Wentworth Shire.

"I knew that's what the properties were called, but I never thought about what it meant," Mr Hill said.

"I never made the connection."