The records of tens of thousands of British convicts sent to Australia from the end of the 18th Century have been put online for the first time. Subscribers can browse names, date of conviction, the length of sentence and which penal colony they went to.
Ancestry.co.uk features records of 160,000 convicts transported to Australia between 1788 and 1868.
It is estimated two million Britons and 22% of Australians will have a convict ancestor listed in the records. The journey to Australia by boat took eight months, six of which were spent at sea and two in ports where supplies were picked up.
The majority of the convicts were men and although a small number had been found guilty of serious crimes such as murder and assault, most had committed minor offences.
Some of the crimes they were punished for included stealing from a pond or river and setting fire to undergrowth.
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