The journey from Britain to C21 Australia
Week 43 OF 52 ANCESTORS CHALLENGE PROMPT: TRANSPORT The ship Neptune, under contract to former slave traders, arrived in Sydney Cove on 28 June 1790, one of the six ships in the Second Fleet that had been sent to the new penal colony of New South Wales. The ship's human cargo of convicts, some dead… Continue reading The Neptune – the ‘Hell Ship’ of the ‘Death Fleet’
Week 42 OF 52 ANCESTORS CHALLENGE PROMPT; ADVENTURE For most people a passport is a ticket to adventure, to holidays and trips far from home. To John Knight, one of my maternal 3 x great grandfathers, his Ticket of Leave Passport was another step on the long road to freedom. This passport allowed the unemployed… Continue reading John Knight’s Passport: Another step towards freedom
Week 40 OF 52 ANCESTORS CHALLENGE PROMPT; HARVEST This post, the 'Hungry Years', describes one family's survival in a time of near starvation in the very early years of the colony of New South Wales following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. Harvests were poor and the population was often desperate for food.… Continue reading The Hungry Years
While convict records provide a wealth of information about a person following conviction, contemporary British newspaper accounts can be a rich source of information about the crime as well as that person's life in the UK before transportation. Therefore, this week's finding is not from TROVE but from the 19th Century British Newspapers Collection (Gale),… Continue reading TROVE Tuesday – Henry Standen was “capitally convicted…”
Hobart docks 2019 This tranquil harbour is where some of my ancestors began the Australian chapters of their life stories. Those stories, featuring imprisonment, hardship, separation, love, recidivism, isolation, theft, bushranging, adultery and even manslaughter, take place in Tasmania, Sydney, Newcastle and the far north coast of New South Wales. Eventually their lives intertwine. The… Continue reading Scenic Saturday – Hobart
Week 35 OF 52 ANCESTORS CHALLENGE PROMPT: AT WORK ...they were splendid men, hard workers, hard drinkers and hard swearers. But they held their own life cheap if a comrade was in danger, and they would share their last pint of flour or pipe of tobacco with a clansman of the scrub"Cornstalks, 'SPLENDID MEN', Northern… Continue reading Red Gold
