ABOUT ME

After a forty-year career in education I found that I had the time to follow one of my passions, family history. This interest had been sparked by spending time sitting with my Nan as she looked through old family photos and documents while telling me wonderful tales about the people in those photos. Of course I thought my memory was bullet proof….It wasn’t. I realised that when I inherited boxes of those photos decades later.

I was lucky enough to complete the Diploma of Family History through the University of Tasmania (UTAS). The course was wonderful, giving me the skills to look behind all of those Birth, Death and Marriages on my family tree. Hopefully I am better able to make sense of that box of unmarked family photos of beautiful brides and soldiers ready for the Front.

This blog ‘From Prisons and Poorhouses’ is just one way of making sense of those photos. The blog’s name indicates that the majority of my direct ancestors were transported to Australia as convicts or were inmates of the poorhouses and workhouses of England or Ireland before their migration to Australia.

In ‘From Prisons and Poorhouses‘ I will attempt to share some of their remarkable stories as well as those of their descendants; the good, the bad and the ugly all have their place as do the tragic and the triumphant.

NOTE: All information is as accurate as possible . If you feel that I have made an error please don’t hesitate to contact me. Sound history is the result of ongoing collaboration.

B. Harris DipFamHist.