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Convict Stories

 

These stories have been submitted by members of the Female Convicts Research Centre, researchers and descendants of female convicts.

If you have a story to share for publication here, please complete a submission form.

 

Recent  additions:

 

Maria Louisa Williams (Swinchatt), ship Mary III 1831

Updated by Suzan Swinchatt 3/06/2019.

 

Well-travelled convicts  (Emma Eugenia 1842)

Written by Margaret Jones. (March 2018)

Over the many years of researching my family and convicts lives of the women of the Emma Eugenia (1842) I have met many brick walls, like us all. Having now looked at over 60 female convicts off the Emma Eugenia I have started to see a common theme when I hit such barriers. What is emerging from all this research is the amount of travel that emigrants and convicts to Australia have been involved in and the need to explore all possible beginnings and destinations of these people.

Margaret Jones

Cascades May 1847

Written by Maureen Mann

Introduction

When the opportunity came to write a piece about the Cascades Female Factory, I was interested in discovering some statistics. This proved more difficult to write about than I expected, as it effectively turned into lists of numbers. Very few statistics were kept at the time, giving modern researchers few historic records to use, apart from the women’s conduct records. There appear to be no entry and exit details, nor information on day-to-day life inside the Factory. While working on my regular FCRC database project, I had already come across several very interesting women. I found I could link them all to Cascades during a single month – May 1847. It would have been possible to choose another month in another year and discover other interesting lives. Serendipity.

  Maureen Mann

 

 

 

Please note:  The links below for conduct record, indent and description list will take you to the Archives Office of Tasmania website.

 

 

Further stories:

Edges of Empire Biographical Dictionary: 

Edges of Empire is a Biographical Dictionary offering accounts of nearly 200 female convicts who were tried or born outside the British Isles. All were transported to the Australian colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land between 1788 and 1853. Their life stories have been tracked from numerous sources around the world, sometimes in detail and sometimes with the merest trace of their existence.

Our Genealogy page also contains some interesting female convict stories researched and written by our genealogists, transcribers and researchers.

The Founders and Survivors project newsletters also contain interesting stories on convicts.
(Scroll down toNewsletter subscription and Previous issues on the left hand side of the page.)