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Just curious if there are any Australians here that have done some research on their ancestry and can trace it back to their ancestor being sent here from the times they had been sent here for various crimes. If so, do you know what your ancestor(s) did to be brought to Australia? Murder? Theft? etc.?
Also, on the whole, how do Australians generally feel about their roots as initially a penal colony?
I have a cousin with a strong interest in our family history, he has done a lot of research. There is a convict if you go through all the men on my fathers side. (The rest of my immediate family are first generation immigrants).
If I remember correctly he was transported to Tasmania for steeling a piece of rope.
Personally i never give the British penal settlement much though. Its just part of our history.
I don't think most Australians think that much about it. Unless you're 100% indigenous, your ancestors came to Australia because they desperately wanted to escape, or were forced to leave, somewhere.
In that era, most serious criminals were sent to the gallows, so those transported were often, but not always, more "trouble makers" or the victims of a pretty repressive social and political order of the day. When you read some biographies or historical accounts, its hard not to feel sympathy for many of them.
The irony is that the lands they were sent to were, by the mid 1850s, far more democratic and socially progressive than their birthplace. And once convicts had served their sentences they were granted land to farm if they so chose; an opportunity that would have been beyond their reach back in their "old country".
If I remember correctly he was transported to Tasmania for steeling a piece of rope.
Bloody rope thieves!
I have one on my Mum's side going back to the late 1700's. Never really looked into it though. I'm pretty sure every person on Earth wouldn't have to go more than a few generations back to find an ancestor who did some time in gaol.
I was always adamant that I hadn't come from Convicts (because that's what my family led me to believe).
After delving further into the family tree though, I did find one convict- the rest came over as free settlers.
I haven't been able to find out what the ancestor did to be transported to Australia as a convict, but the history I have found shows a tough life. When he was 7,he was accepted into a Workhouse. A log book compiled by a Church about the health of the Work Houses inmates, noted that at 12, he was in good health but was often disciplined for bad behavior.
Life after the workhouse upon reaching adulthood can't have been easy- so it isn't surprising he resorted to crime before being transported to Australia at age 20.
I don't have positive or negative feelings either way about it.
Many convicts transported for petty thefts, stealing a loaf of bread was one of them. Remember the main aim was to populate Australia they came from poverty into worse poverty many were females https://www.environment.gov.au/herit...female-factory
Many convicts transported for petty thefts, stealing a loaf of bread was one of them. Remember the main aim was to populate Australia they came from poverty into worse poverty many were females https://www.environment.gov.au/herit...female-factory
To be fair, females made up 15% of all the convicts transported, which is one of the reasons why having convict heritage is a lot less common than what people might think.
The country as a whole had a very large male to female gap, for much of it's early history.
I suspect there were other goals as well. The Irish rebellion of 1798 and chartist movement that peaked in the early early 1800s would have left the powers of the day pretty nervous. One member of the British parliament found guilty of sedition ended up at Port Arthur in Tasmania.
Historians have suggested that it some cases it was who the convict knew or associated with, and not their petty crime, that got them transported.
Young boy convicts were treated very badly fro the boys sent to Port Arthur it would have been hellThe Convict Era - Port Arthur
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