Convicts in the Closet

Family histories often hold hidden secrets, skeletons and untold stories. These hold great interest and intrigue for the family researcher but also great frustration. These skeletons are frustrating as it is extremely difficult to get accurate information from those who may hold some insights. 

As a family researcher, how many times have you probed your relations for information and received responses along the lines of "nobody ever spoke about it", "we heard whispers, but never knew for sure", "my mother told me it didn't concern me"? 

For many people, it is discovering that they are descendants of convicts. For many Australians, this is not so unusual if their ancestors in Australia go back at least four or five generations. There is much interest now in tracing convict ancestry and much of the stigma has disappeared. There are numerous avenues now for tracing your convict roots and Genealogy for All is keen to develop a list of such resources.

We are always happy to include resources that you have found, so if you are aware of a great site, please let us know and we would be happy to include it. Visit the Convict Ancestry page of the blog to see this growing resource list.