Who Do You Think You Are? Encyclopedia of Genealogy (60 page)

British emigration to New Zealand also began in the nineteenth century, after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840. Initially, emigration to New Zealand was less popular than to other parts of the world and the New Zealand Company had to actively encourage migration to the islands in rural England and Scotland by promoting New Zealand and offering free passage to some skilled workers. Economic assistance to encourage migration was also provided by the territorial governments of New Zealand from the 1850s onwards, resulting in a large increase in settlers arriving from this period onwards, although the numbers arriving were in tens of thousands not hundreds of thousands. The numbers dropped towards the end of the nineteenth century due to an economic depression in New Zealand, but they recovered at the beginning of the twentieth century when further groups of British and Irish migrants arrived with the assistance of the British government.

It may be possible to trace a migrant, depending on when they left and where they chose to go, through many British archives and the archives of the destination country.

The majority of records that list those emigrating through the centuries can be found in The National Archives. They are scattered amongst records found in the Treasury, Board of Trade, Colonial and Home Office series. Unfortunately, there is no single index to these many records and reference may have to be made to a number of different records.

Passports were not required as an official travel document in Britain until 1914. Hence, prior to that date, only a very small minority applied for such documentation even though the first records of those applying for passports begin in the sixteenth century. The earliest passports were used as licences to travel abroad and relevant records are found in The National Archives. Series E 157 contains registers of people applying for such licences from 1572 onwards; SP 25/111 has lists of passes issued during the Cromwellian Interregnum (between 1650 and 1653). Calendars of State Papers for the eighteenth century also include relevant records.

If you are researching an emigrant during the nineteenth century there are certain sources found within the Colonial Office records that may assist with research. A number of series specifically relate to emigration departments of the Colonial Office:

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Emigration Original Correspondence, 1817–96, in CO 384. This series includes letters and other documents from individuals who had settled or wished to settle in the popular destinations of Canada, the West Indies and Australia, along with other colonies.

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Emigration registers specific to North America are in CO 327 (1850–63) and CO 328 (1864–68).

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A Land and Emigration Commission was established in 1833 in order to provide assistance to would-be emigrants by free passages and land grants; the records are in CO 386 (1833–94).

Other records in The National Archives that may be of use are those created after the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. This law also allowed for parishes to assist their poor parishioners to emigrate. Records can be found in MH 12 (1834–90), arranged alphabetically under county and the new poor law unions. Hence it is only feasible to use this series if the name of the union is known. Additional information can be found in MH 13/252 (correspondence from 1853 to 1854 between the Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners and the General Board of Health) and MH 19/22 (Poor Law Authorities and Emigration Commissioners correspondence between 1836 and 1876).

As is well known, many British and Irish convicted of criminal offences were punished by being transported abroad, firstly to North America and later to Australia. At the time this was seen as a humane form of punishment, saving convicted criminals from the death penalty.

The starting date of this penal system was 1615, with criminals being transported to North America or the West Indies for a number of years to work on the new plantations, although many would not return. It is believed that approximately 150,000 British and Irish individuals were transported to North America, up until the American Revolution in 1776. If you find an ancestor who met this fate you may be able to trace his conviction and subsequent transportation. For details concerning researching in surviving criminal records turn to
Chapter 27
. However, it is also possible to ascertain details relating to the actual transportation. Fortunately, there is a large amount of information that has been published.

The best place to begin is by consulting Peter Wilson Coldham's book
The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775
. Coldham has compiled lists of all those men and women who were transported using the available contemporary sources held at The National Archives. Most usefully he details at which court or session the individual was convicted, allowing further research into these sets of records. The name of the ship the convict was transported on is also listed, where known.

After 1776 an alternative destination for transporting convicts had to be found, and by 1787 Australia had become the chosen destination. As mentioned, the first group of convicts arrived in January 1788 and many more continued to arrive until the system was abolished in 1868 (although few arrived after 1857). During this time approximately 160,000 convicts were resettled from Britain and Ireland.

Records of those transported can be found in the UK and also in Australia. Unfortunately, unlike the records for North America, there is no uniform comprehensive published index for these sources. Rather, it is only feasible to search the original records if you are aware of the trial details (where and when the convict was tried) or the name of the ship they sailed on. However, there are useful published sources for specific transportation records:

‘Transportation was seen as a humane alternative to the death penalty.'

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Lists of the very first convicts arriving in the first and second fleets have been published by P. G. Fidlon and R. J. Ryan,
The First Fleeters
(Sydney, 1981) and R. J. Ryan,
The Second Fleet Convicts
(Sydney, 1982) respectively.

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David T. Hawking's
Bound for Australia
(Chichester, 1987) is a useful overview of the subject and contains many transcriptions of relevant records.

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The Genealogical Society of Victoria has compiled an index to the New South Wales Convict Indents and Ships, detailing the names of the convicts who arrived in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land between 1788 and 1842. This is available in microfiche form at The National Archives.

Various censuses and musters were taken in Australia by the British government during the early nineteenth century and many of these have been published and can be consulted at The National Archives and other large reference libraries. If you locate your ancestor amongst these sources the record should also provide conviction details and which ship your ancestor arrived on. These are the key details needed for consulting original records for transportation, such as the volumes of transportation registers found in The National Archives series HO 11 (arranged by ship name and date of travel) or the trial records themselves.

Trial records are very formal in nature and provide limited information of genealogical relevance. Often loved ones of the convict would petition
the government for mercy. Additionally, some wives would request to join their convicted husbands in the colonies. Such records give very useful insights into the personal circumstances of the convict and can be invaluable in bringing the past into life. These petitions are also found in The National Archives, in the Home Office and Privy Council series.

Records for those being transported from Ireland are to be found in the National Archives of Ireland. These include transportation registers and petitions similar to those described above. Both these sets of records have been transcribed and can be searched online on the National Archives of Ireland website, www.nationalarchives.ie. Unfortunately, the records are incomplete due to the destruction of many Irish records in 1922 and transportation registers for before 1836 have not survived to the present day. Nevertheless, the database does contain records for those convicts who had petitions made for them before 1836. The database provides the name of the convict along with trial and crime details and can be used free of charge.

Another useful website for researching those transported to Australia can be found at www.convictcentral.com. The site gives guidance on how to research convict ancestors, with transcriptions of records of some ships transporting convicts to various parts of Australia and full information on the musters taken in Australia during the early nineteenth century, whether they have been published and where the original records survive. It is a very useful website and can be accessed free of charge.

Another major way people emigrated was by being ‘assisted', usually financially. A large number went to North America and the West Indies as indentured labourers. Such individuals were given financial assistance in travelling and living in the New World, agreed to work on a plantation for a number of years and were given a plot of land after they had completed their agreed period of work. This was a popular system, with 200,000–300,000 indentured labourers arriving in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A number of parishes would also sponsor such a system for their paupers as a means to relieve the burden of supporting the poor in the parish. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 allowed poor law unions to give financial and material assistance to those emigrating, and similar assistance was also provided by the Commission of Land Emigration (both mentioned above).

‘Parishes would help paupers migrate to relieve the burden of supporting them in the parish.'

Another type of emigration was by poor or orphaned children to various parts of the colonial Empire. The origins of this system can be traced to the seventeenth century. The first group of 100 children from the Christ's Hospital School were sent by the City of London to assist the Virginia Company populate the new colony. The records for this school are now at the Guildhall Library and approximately 1,000 children were sent from this school between 1617 and 1775. Their names can be found in
The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775
.

Child migration was used increasingly during the mid-nineteenth century onwards, thanks to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1850 which allowed Boards of Guardians to send children abroad. Additionally, it was during this time that many charities, various church bodies and philanthropic organizations were established (such as Dr Barnardo's), and many of these institutions opted to send pauper children abroad to help them establish a better life. The process continued well into the twentieth century; between 1922 and 1967 approximately 150,000 children migrated to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a small number to Rhodesia with the idea of populating the colonies with ‘good British white stock'. Details of how to trace these migrants will be discussed under the individual destination countries below.

This policy was often very unsettling for these children, displaced from their familiar home country and sent to live in faraway places, where they would often be treated as little more than cheap labour. Some child migrants are still living in their new countries and an organization dedicated to helping migrants trace their roots was established in 1987 – the Child Migrants Trust. Further details of the aims of the trust can be found at their website, www.childmigrantstrust.com.

Records for those leaving under indentured labour can be found at The National Archives and also at the London Guildhall Library. A good book detailing assisted migration to North America and the West Indies is Coldham's
The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614–1775
, mentioned above. General sources relating to the colonial governance of North America and the West Indies, found in The National Archives (State Office, Colonial Office and Privy Council calendars), will contain information of relevance. Local parish records may also have information amongst their vestry minutes about individuals granted assistance to emigrate. These should be held at the local archive or record office.

As mentioned, many individuals chose to leave on a voluntary basis, attempting to establish a better life in far and distant places. Relevant records for such migration can be found in various archives in the UK
and also in many different repositories in destination countries. Below is a guide to the key sources that may be consulted for the most popular destination countries for such migrants.

Several states in the present-day United States and Canada made up one of the earliest colonies acquired for the British Empire. As such they were the earliest destination countries of both voluntary and involuntary migrants. Some general sources have been discussed earlier. The earliest colony to be inhabited was that of Virginia, where thousands of people were required to work on the plantations. Emigration was encouraged by using the ‘headright' system, whereby people migrating would be given 50 acres of land if they funded their own arrival, and a further 50 acres if they paid for another migrant to arrive. This system enabled plantation owners to increase the size of their estates as most of the migrants would have had their travel paid for by the plantation owners. As such they would be indentured emigrants (see above). Nevertheless, below is a list of various records to assist in tracing free settlers during the colonial period.

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The calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, 1574–1738, relates to all matters of administration of the colonies. It is available on CD ROM at The National Archives and other large reference libraries. It is indexed by name, making it possible to search the collections for an individual migrant.