Convict ancestors course

I am going to separate the sources to use when searching for your convict. As more sources are mentioned in discussions, I will add to the relevant pages.

Back in the home country prior to transportation.

After court and given sentence of transportation, most male convicts were loaded into carts while shackled and taken to the port areas of Portsmouth, Plymouth , the Solent or Thames Estuary. From here, loaded into a rowing boat and taken out to the floating hulk where they lived until put on a convict ship to Australia. There were also hulks in Dunleary Harbour Dublin (Dun Laoghaire) and Cove in County Cork.

Female convicts did not spend time on hulks but straight to the convict ship. There were over 4000 children accompanied their mother to Australia. So females didn’t have time to recover from the road journey to the ships in London before they were actually on the seas heading to Australia so often more deaths or diseases occurred if the female lived a long way from London.

Here is a link to teaching resources about the hulks including primary sources about life on board.

Life on the seas coming to Australia

Here are some links to get you started:

Convicts sent from CanadaFounders and survivors group,  Female convicts Tasmania, claim your convict,  Tasmanian orphan school records,

One thought on “Convict ancestors course

  1. Thank you for your info.
    I was reading about the Orphanages yesterday and some of the stories were so sad. Their treatment was horrid.

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