Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

This is the subject matter of a Society of Genealogy (SAG) seminar I attended on Saturday. It was delivered by Christine Yeats who is a wealth of information, which she imparted so rapidly I'm sure I barely got half of it! Thank goodness she gave a great handout as well, which I have also added to Compass under About Us>Unit Portals>Library>Staff Training>Family History Help.

What she has given here are tips about where to go and what to do when you've hits walls.

I recently participated in a webinar held by the Society of Australian Genealologists (SAG), on Tracing Tasmanian Convicts by Dr Dianne Snowden.

The webinar firstly gave some historical facts and stats about those poor souls who came to be transported to Van Dieman's Land.

• Convict transportation to Tasmania commenced in 1803 and ceased in 1853, although convicts remained under sentence into the 1880's.
• 75 000 convicts were transported in that time made up of:
  85% men, 15% women.  
• 70% were English, 25% Irish and 5% Scottish
• Most were transported for theft -90% 
• Women were punished for giving birth to illegitimate children (?!)
• Deserters had the letter "D" tattooed on their arm.