Ever wondered where your hairy legs come from? Or perhaps it’s your ruddy complexion, flaxen hair or so-called frugal nature… We often boast about the crimes of our convict ancestors, but with the List of Convicts with Particulars 1788-1842, Australians can now also get a picture of what they looked like. This collection contains information Read More
The New South Wales Registers of Convicts’ Applications to Marry 1826-1851 contains more than 40,000 convict applications to wed, including numerous multiple applications made by those whose initial applications were refused. In the early years of the Australian Colony, most marriages followed the publication of banns in a church on three successive Sundays. Convicts did Read More
In his Report of the Commissioner of inquiry into the state of the colony of New South Wales, Commissioner John Thomas Bigge made the recommendation that any money belonging to and brought by the convicts should be taken and deposited into a savings bank account. Prior to this, convicts had been able to retain any Read More
New South Wales was first settled in 1788 as a penal colony and, as a result, a large percentage of the population in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was comprised of convicts and ex-convicts. A person could be emancipated by receiving a certificate of freedom, a ticket of leave, or by being granted Read More
The England & Wales Criminal Registers 1791-1892 contain records for all 1.4 million criminal trials reported to the Home Office that took place in England and Wales from the late 18th to the late 19th centuries, painting a detailed picture of Britain’s early legal system1. The collection – taken from 279 original paper volumes held Read More
The Convict Transportation Registers 1788-1868 include records for most of the 163,021 convicts transported to Australia. The collection – the originals for which are held at The National Archives of England and Wales – includes the four transportation registers spanning the 80 years of convict transportation. Australian Convict Transportation Registers – First Fleet, 1787-1788 Australian Read More
We recently launched online for the first time the more than 42,000 Australian convict records in the NSW Tickets of Leave Butts 1824-1867. The collection includes Registers of Tickets of Leave 1824-1827, which offers prisoner details in ledger format, and Ticket of Leave Butts 1827-1867. The butts were essentially copies of the ‘Tickets’ given to Read More
Ancestry.com.au’s collection of more than 2.3 million convict records will be available to search for FREE to the public for 11 days beginning January 20 in honour of Australia Day. With more than four million Australians having descended from convicts1, approximately one in five can claim convict history and will likely have an ancestor included Read More
Ancestry.com.au is proud to support Queensland in its efforts to recover from the recent, terrible floods by making a donation to the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal. Please join us and show your support by making a donation. Thank you for your support and to our Queensland members, we wish you well. The Ancestry.com.au team
Why have we changed the search form? Over the past year, we have been working with a wide range of Ancestry members, from some of our most experienced members to relative newcomers. We’ve had a lot of help (including over 10,000 responses to the preview we published in April). Based on this feedback, we’ve been Read More