More Australian convict records go online

Australia Week may have officially ended but for those interested in antipodean ancestry or that of relatives, Ancestry.co.uk has put more convict records online.

The Convict Registers of Conditional and Absolute Pardons, 1791-1846 and the New South Wales Certificates of Freedom, 1827-1867, bring the total of Australian criminal and convict records to more than 2.3 million contained in 15 collections available from the genealogy site.

English criminal and Australian convict records are a cornerstone for UK researchers with Australian ancestors. Ancestry.co.uk estimates that more than two million Britons have a convict ancestor, meaning that there is a one in 30 chance that they will have ancestor included in the records.

Information that can be accessed contain a variety of personal information such as name, date and place of conviction, crime and trial details, term of sentence, name of ship, departure date and the colony to which convicts were sent.

Also included can be occupation, a physical description and the convict’s religion. Most records are fully searchable and include links to original document images.

The 15 collections which comprise the Australian Convicts Collection, will be free to access on Ancestry.co.uk until tomorrow, Saturday 30 January.

Other collections the site is making free to search until tomorrow include England and Wales Criminal Registers, the Convict Transportation Registers, Convict Muster Rolls, Convict Applications to Marry, Convict Death Registers, and a variety of other record sets documenting the trial, journey, working life, release and death of the majority of convicts transported.