ancestry.com free searches

[sparrett]

Hi,
 Ancestry is letting me look at stuff on a free account.
They have a lot of aussie data which has recently been added.
Am I the last to notice this?  Very often the case!!
Sue

Edit:  You can only look at some items I now see and others ask for sub. A bit wierd really.
Repeatedly asks for login when you already are.

[EDO]

CAUTION::

Is it a fact that, once Ancestry gets involved you will even be required to pay to view data that you have contributed!!

EDO

[Andcarred]

Hi,

Is it the Convict records you are referring to?  See newspaper announcement.

Article from: AAP
JOHN Howard and Kevin Rudd share something in common - both have a convict ancestry.

As a federal election looms and the nation's political leaders attempt to
differentiate themselves, an ancestry website revealed that the Prime
Minister and the Opposition Leader both have ancestors who arrived on
Australia's shores in chains.

Mr Howard and Mr Rudd are part of an estimated 22 per cent of the Australian
population who have a distant relative with a criminal past.

They and other Australians will now be able to trawl through the records of
most of the 163,000 convicts who arrived in Australia from England, Ireland
and Scotland thanks to a new collection of records which has been launched
on the ancestry website Ancestry.com.au.

The comprehensive collection of convict transportation records spans 80
years between 1788 and 1868.

Pre-census records have also been uploaded, including the NSW and Tasmania
Convict Pardons and tickets of leave 1834-1859.

Managing director of Ancestry.com.au, Josh Hanna, said the collection
brought together parts of the convict transport list which had only been
available in various state libraries and archives.

"Murderers, pirates, money swindlers and handkerchief thieves are all listed
in detail in this colourful and important collection which reveals as much
about how meticulous the British were in their record keeping as it does
about those sent to serve out their sentence in Australia," Mr Hanna said.

The collection contains four transport registers spanning 80 years of
convict settlement and includes some of Australia's most well known convicts
such as Red Kelly, Ned Kelly's father.

Registers contain the convict's name, date, place of conviction, term of
sentence, name of ship, departure date, colony to which they were sent and
some include the person's occupation, physical description and religion.

The website says almost three quarters of the male and female convicts who
arrived in Australia had no prior convictions.

Seventy per cent of the convicts were English, 24 per cent were Irish, five
per cent were Scottish and one per cent came from other parts of the Empire.

Most of the convicts were illiterate and were convicted for crimes of
poverty (theft).

Andcarred

[EDO]

My wife and I are only related to 3 of the 160 000 convicts transported to Australia!!

EDO

[sparrett]

Hi Ancarred
Yes, This news was also on  a morning TV program today with a man describing how he had found all the background of Rudd & Howard.  Very clever.
It is interesting to me that much of this information has been freely available [and I mean freely] on various sites in Australia.  
I guess it is viewing the original entries that is the difference.
Am I right ?
 It would need to be pretty good to get one to pay forwhat can be got eleswhere for nothing!

Sue

[Andcarred]

Hi,

All the information on convicts is available free at a lot of large libraries.  Not a lot of original convict records are on the net.   However for people in remote areas or who are housebound and not able to travel to archives and libraries I guess it would be cheaper to join Ancestry.

As I am not as a subscriber to Ancestry I was just wondering as to the quality and quantity of information on each convict.  Would love to hear from anyone who has done a lookup.

Andcarred

[cando]

Hi

Just did a lookup on the convict database on Ancestry - I only have the uk subscription and was unsuccessful in finding my OH's ancestor, Thomas Skipworth.  He does not appear on the database. Why - because there are only 40,217 names on the index   Well certainly not complete .....as hinted at by EDO.
 
Australian Convict Index, 1788-1868 Free  Perhaps it should stated incomplete.

Cheers
cando

[cando]

Here is a list of what I could find in the way of Aus records  - free databases in blue.

Sands Directories: Sydney and New South Wales, Australia, 1861-1933         9,724,083

Who's Who in Australia 1921-1950   51,008

Australian Convict Index, 1788-1868      40,217

Maryborough, Queensland Australia Immigrants from the British Isles & Germany 1861-91,734

New South Wales, Australia 1828 - 1842: Bounty Immigrants List  6,473

A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Colonial Gentry     111,142

ANZAC Memorial, 1914-1918     79,788

The Dictionary of Australasian Biography  69,784

Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, Vol. 1 64,538

Benedictine Pioneers in Australia, Vol. 2  64,416

An Australian Biographical Dictionary     49,166

The Australian Portrait Gallery and Memoirs of Representative Colonial Men        48,068

The Jubilee of the Law school of the University of Sydney 1890-1940     37,942

Australia's Fighting Sons of The Empire. Portraits and Biographies of Australians in the Great War      36,600

The Federal Directory of Newcastle and District for 1901,      28,304

19th Century Emigration of 'Old Lutherans' from Eastern Germany to Australia, Canada, and the United States     1,632



Numbers indicate name count estimate.

Cheers
cando

[Ruskie]

I saw the item on Channel 7's Sunrise programme this morning. The viewer was given the impression that it's as simple as typing in the name and all records about your convict ancestor will appear on screen including copies of original documents. There was no mention of payment and no mention of any records being incomplete.