G'day kat,

The First Fleet - the one that first settled Australia in 1788 - had fairly good British Government supervision and reasonably good conditions for the transported convicts. Subsequent convict transport was handed over to contractors (as it had been, formerly, for transportation to America) and conditions - and deaths in transit - on the second fleet were much worse.

The person who stood up and "blew the whistle" on bad practices and conditions seems to have been a convict woman named Sarah Bolton. I can't see any suggestion that she was any relation to my family, since my Gradfather Bolton only came out from Lancashire in 1911, as a 14-year old with his mother and brother, after his father died the year before.

However, the earliest arrival I have traced on my mother's side was Jane-Anne Quinn from Ireland with her 'free sttler' family in 1834 and married a Dutch sailor, Jan van Kampen, on the goldfields in 1854. Others of Mum's family claim her to have been a sister to Ellen Quinn (arriving in the same year) who married an ex-convict John (Red) Kelly - and their first son (born in 1854) was Edward (Ned).. who went on to be our most noted bushranger!

It's fairly hard to track down the old records, due to events like the strange way that the "Crystal Palace" of the 1888 Exposition caught fire and burned to the ground ... just after they moved the old State records into the empty building for storage!

Regards,

Bo