Our proud convict past

Two websites have recently been launched which will be of value to historians researching their convict heritage.

Founders and Survivors is a national project funded by the Australian Research Council.
It seeks to record and study the founding population of 73,000 men women and children who were transported to Tasmania. Many survived their convict experience and went on to help build a new society. It is inviting submissions of names of convicts from the community.

You can read more about the project at The Age website.

Convict researchers will be aware of Old Bailey Online -the proceedings of the Old Bailey 1674 - 1913. An Old Bailey user wiki has been launched, allowing users to contribute information on people mentioned in the Proceedings, historical background, related source materials, and corrections. The wiki also includes the bibliography and school resources pages.

Tasmanian BDM Registry Access Policy

The Tasmanian Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages has revised its Access Policy. From 1 April 2008 unrestricted access will be

. 100 years for birth records
. 25 years for death records, and
. 75 years for marriage records.

As for the Victorian and other Registries the new policy is driven by longer longevity of the Australian population and privacy.

Other Australian Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages have made or are considering similar changes to their Access Policy, in ongoing efforts to standardise access provisions across jurisdictions.