Find your convict ancestor from the early colony of Victoria and uncover details of their sentence and transportation. Trace their progression from criminal to assigned servant, ticket-of-leave holder to free person.
Find your convict ancestor from the early colony of Victoria and uncover details of their sentence and transportation. Trace their progression from criminal to assigned servant, ticket-of-leave holder to free person.
Each record includes an image of the original and a transcript. The amount of information listed varies, but the Victoria Registers of Convicts 1842-1854 may include the following information:
The Victoria Registers of Convicts 1842-1854 are invaluable for anyone researching their convict ancestors from what is now the state of Victoria.
These records are made up of several lists relating to the administration of convicts in the Port Phillip District. This region was administered by the colony of New South Wales until, on 1 July 1851, it separated to become the Colony of Victoria.
Although no convicts were transported directly to this region, many ended up in Port Phillip, typically as assigned servants or workers on government projects. Others entered from New South Wales or Tasmania as ticket-of-leave holders seeking work.
Some of the lists included in this dataset include:
The type and detail of information provided in the Victoria Registers of Convicts 1842-1854 on an individual convict or former convict depends on the list or lists on which they were recorded.
In the Assigned Servants list, you may find:
In the Nominal List of Ticket-of-Leave Holders, you may find:
In the list of Tickets of Leave in Office for Delivery, you may find:
In the Application for Pardons list, you may find:
In the Certificates of Freedom Delivered list, you may find:
Finally, the list of Fees Received recorded fees which had to be lodged alongside an application for a ticket of leave or for a pardon (either conditional or absolute). Details you may find on this list include:
Note that there was also a list of ‘Runaways’, however this was missing from the volume at the time of digitisation due to unknown circumstances.
Data provided by Public Record Office Victoria