I believe Australians these days are generally quite pleased if they can prove that they are descended from convicts.

There was a peak of such sentiment, publicly, in the lead-up to "The Bicentennial" and for some years following it. And, as I was then teaching history, I taught some of the basic genealogical techniques and tried them out on my own ancestry to exemplify them. So, yes, it was with some interest that I found I had ancestors on both ends of the ball and chain; the Ensign that came out in the Second Fleet took, as his common-law wife, the daughter of a pair of First Fleet convicts. Incidentally, it wasn't until I got to South Carolina that I discovered the background to the commutation of the thug's original sentencing ("Death") to "Transportation to Africa"; I had thought New South Wales was automatically their destination.

But "pride"? Nah! "Interest" certainly.

On a note more central to the thread, while we make our posts as part of an ongoing conversational correspondence, our 'conversations' are not just "ours" and ephemeral; it seems there are others who use them for legitimate research purposes. I suspect this one might be of more interest than many 'below the line'.

Cheers, Rowan