Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Another Convict and on the trail of my Ancestors

For over 20 years there has been mystery surrounding my 3rd great grandparents, due to their common name they have not been easy to find. My Grandmother 20+ years ago paid to have a search done for my 3rd Great Grandmother as we knew her name and knew she had been married here - the search turned up empty.
So we skip to Australia Day 2012 and Ancestry.com allowing Convict Record views for free. Imagine my delight and surprise when I found the Convict Request to marry my Free settler 3rd Great Grandmother EUREKA!But that was not where the discovery ended...I knew now where the two of there were in a moment in time and was then able to link my 3rd Great Grandfather back with the information in the application to his crime and am pretty sure I am hot on his trail of his tickets of leave...I saved to my shoebox all possibilities! The bonus, there were 5 public trees containing these people and a little more information (that of course I will need to source) but I am off on another line! Woohoo!The mystery is not completely solved but it is now no longer totally in the dark either!
In other discoveries with these records, I have been saved a visit to State Records as the Special Bundles and Colonial Secretary's papers were also viewable for free and I know that another Grandfather of mine was eventually granted an Absolute pardon! Not bad for someone whose original sentence was Death, this also explained how he got to be a licensee for 3+ pubs in Sydney.
So 2012 looks like the year I may just get stuck back into all these lines...I really would like them polished a bit more for next year and my son's 21st..after all that was the plan originally - but somehow 20yrs back then seemed such a long way away!