well, my earliest known ancestor arrived as a convict in 1812, sentenced in York cos he & others broke into a house, threatened the owner & servant & took stuff including a few bits of money & a leg of ham! They were apparently dobbed in by a notorious fence with an interesting nickname I can't remember now. While they were in jail the wife of one tried to smuggle in a saw & joined them in court & exile!

His wife & 5 children joined him a year later & everyone did well in the new country, he & his sons sending up with land & respectabilty.

One daughter married the son of a famous rich man BUT she appeared to have left him some time later as her death was judged by the Coroner as being caused by "Intemperate habits' - she was found dead on the street, & that made me wonder if any of her brothers & respectable relatives had similar intemperate habits, covered up by equally respectable doctors.

One of his sons married a girl who was born in the colony, probably the (2nd illegitimate) daughter of a soldier who arrived in 1796 (8 years after the first English settlement in Australia at Sydney Cove) so that makes us very early setters indeed.

Oh & the best bit of all - my Scottish ancestors were Borderers, they didn't just fight the English, they fought everyone!

Other than that an assortment of farmers, a blacksmith, an innkeeper, several storekeepers, a saddler, 2 stonemasons, a number of labourers, a cordial factory owner, housepainter, electrician, motor mechanic, several clerks, a poor Irishwoman who was a steerage passenger, & some lightly better off Scottish folk, one of whom was a Presbyterian lay preacher.

sandra