How many convict relatives in your tree?

[coombs]

I know many Australians descend from convicts but also descend from free settlers. This also means many UK and Irish people will have those convicts in their tree who were siblings or cousins of direct rellies, or even direct ancestors who either returned to the British Isles or left their family over here.

So far I have found 2 ancestor siblings who were transported to Australia. Edward Childs born 1814 in Essex and Thomas Tanner born 1802 in Toot Baldon, Oxfordshire. I just recently found Thomas Tanner and was pleased to find another convict in the family. Such findings can be a godsend as convicts were well documented, although after they were given a cert of freedom if they did, they can be more difficult to trace.

[pharmaT]

I haven't found anyone transported, yet. The key word is yet, there are plenty of siblings in my tree who I haven't managed to find out what happened to them.

[Treetotal]

Good for you...I have one or two for Petty Larceny fined a bob or two but none transported to Australia though...still hunting though in the hope I will find one
Carol

[coombs]

Keep plugging away, about 164'000 convicts were transported to Australia inbetween 1788 and 1868. There must have been many of them with 3 or 4 more siblings who remained in the UK so that amounts to about over a million people with direct ancestors who were siblings of these convicts. This must mean Michael Parkinson is not related to any of them lol.

I love ancestors who dabbled with the law, it paints a clearer pic of their lives and gives info on them if they were sent to trial, often reported in newspapers. More so if convicted and sent to Australia.

[JAKnighton]

None that I've found, although it may explain what happened to a few relatives that seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. Time to look into some Australian records I think.

[StanleysChesterton]

None that were transported.  I've got regular criminals who went to (short-term) prison and did some hard labour.  From Rootschat members' posts, I've spotted downlines of people who appear on my tree including a couple of lads who went out to Canada via some assisted programmes, for their "betterment" and somebody else whose husband was actually transported.  But none of these were my direct upline.

Lads were my G-gm's brothers; man transported was my GGG-gf's sister's husband.

Generally, mine stuck to petty criminality and naughtiness.  Being away from large cities, maybe there was less pressure to ship them out. 

I'm not really confident about finding people who went abroad, in the main, so if I can't find people in England then I tend to drop it.  I just find people who did go abroad from the posts of others - and - one "lucky find" I discovered in trove.au where my GGG-gm's brother married and left for a new life and his wife lived so long her local paper did an article on her, which was then available to me when it popped up in a search.

[pinefamily]

Being born and bred in South Australia, the only free state with no convict origins, I did not expect to find any in my direct ancestry. I have found two, in the same line, both of whom came to SA from Tasmania after receiving their freedom. Have to agree with Coombs, their convict history is well documented, right down to their physical appearance and immediate family in England; it's been hard to find out how and when they came to SA.
I often wonder if they knew each other in Tasmania, but they were in different locations. It is hard to believe that one's daughter married the other's son, in another state, yet they were both convicts. Perhaps they met on the boat to SA.
Now if I can only find Daniel Wood's death; he seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. A lot of SA records from country areas never made it to the registrar unfortunately.

[Billyblue]

My direct count is 6, with 4 of them being from the one (Irish) family.  Parents and one brother to my mum's grandfather who had been 'exported' a year prior; my Billy Blue and his wife who married after they met in Sydney.  interestingly, GGF got his pardon and left Australia, then committed some other minor crime so he could get sent back!
One or two of Billy's daughters married convicts too.
And then there was mum's other grandfather who had a very short (3 days!) career as a bushranger in New South Wales.

      
Dawn M

[coombs]

In 2007 when I was in Australia I went to Wollongong to do a skydive, and I had not idea that my 5xgreat uncle lived there for years as a convict. Now that Anc has a free Easter weekend I can do some hardcore research on this man.