This project is being undertaken by the Convict Special Interest Group of FamilyHistoryWA. The team have completed loading details for all convicts who came to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868. In total 9,710 convicts were transported to WA. The project is ongoing as there is quite a bit more nformation which we can load or tidy up. Refer to the Change Log to see our ongoing activities.
- Key events in each Convict's life focussing on their time as a convict and life after arriving in WA.
- Links to convict records, prison records, newspaper articles and in general as many primary source images as we can find. Some of the early convicts have two separate pdf files showing near the top of their page for Aust links and UK links. To speed up loading of data later convicts have only one pdf links file. Many of the WA links are at the ship level so you need to look at the ship page as well as your convict's page.
- Where appropiate we have added links to the Citations section on each convict's page. Generally these links wont be repeated so always look for Citations Links.
- Where we have additional images to share they have been added next to the relevant event e.g. family or death (look for a small camera icon). A full set of images can be viewed in the Photo Gallery.
- Stories about the life of each convict which will be added progressively to the Bio section. Many will be in the form of attached pdf files.
- Links to Ticket of Leave, Conditional Pardon dates are on the pages for each ship (requires Ancestry access).
- Links to Character Books and General Registers have also been added at the Ship level, where they exist, online (requires Ancestry access).
- Links to the Convict Description List are also on the page for each ship (requires Ancestry access).
- Have a look under "Indexes" for some interesting groupings of convicts. Keep your eye on the "Page Updates" index to easily spot if your convict has had a recent update.
The focus of this database is about giving users access to links to images of original records and the stories about each convict. Please check the "Sources" tab on the index to see which websites require you to have user access. Unfortunately many of the convict links are currently only accessible online via a subscription site, the good news is that FHWA members can access these sites for free at the May St, Bayswater library. Please check Sources for guidance regarding ancestry.com.au vs ancestrylibrary.com.au and also findmypast.com.au vs findmypast.co.uk.
If you have stories about your Convict ancestor or additional information that you are happy to share online please contact us and we will add them. We have not attempted to "re-source" a lot of the basic data about each convict's life so there are likely to be a number of errors which we are happy to correct if you send us in the details with sources. Contact convicts.sig@fhwa.org.au if you would like to send in stories and or corrections.
YouTube Video - Introduction to the website
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