The Telegraph and the Mail both report today on the National Archives/ancestry.co.uk project to make available online convict transportation records which will allow Britons to trace their links to the thieves, robbers and poachers who were deported to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries. The online register, created from the original records held at the National Archives in Kew, includes the name, date, place of convicton, and marital status of most of the 163,000 convicts sent to Australia. About 2m Britons are believed to be descended from relatives of the deportees.
Read the Telegraph story: Britons have chance to track convict cousins; Read the Mail story: Web will transport 2m Brits to their Oz convict cousins
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