Thomas (Sedgewick?) Rosewell transported 1818

[Litsehimmel]

Hi folks.

Just last night I found a transcript at the Old Bailey's website which indicated that I might descend from a transported convict. Imagine my surprise ...

Here's what I found:

Thomas ROSEWELL
located at Shepperton
aged 19
sentenced 06 May 1818 to 7 years transportation to ?? for theft

This coincides with details of my 3x great-grandfather, Thomas Sedgewick ROSEWELL, born July 1798 (therefor 19 in May 1818) at Shepperton and baptised in August at Sunbury on Thames; married 10 May 1817 at Sunbury to Mary GOODALL.

Their 1st child was born before the marriage (Thomas, bapt. April 1817 as son of Mary Goodall), but there's a SEVEN YEAR GAP between the 1st and the 2nd child!

To my point of view this points out that both Thomases are one and the same person. However, I haven't been able to track down his name on a ship or in Australia. And researching from The Netherlands is a bit difficult.

Does anybody have any ideas how to go about finding out what happened to him? Any information will be appreciated very much.

With friendly greetings,

Saskia Milo

[Melissa Jones]

Presuming that Thomas was transported to Australia, you might want to have a look at the New South Wales State Records website (http://www.records.nsw.gov.au/) where a number of indexes relating to convicts are available.

BTW, did you know that Thomas Sedgwick Rosewell's will is on the UK's National Archives website?


Melissa

[Litsehimmel]

Hi Melissa.

Thank you for answering my query ;o)

Yes, I did search the indexes, but unfortunately nothing popped up. So I'm at a loss where to go from here. I assume (maybe incorrectly?) that Thomas was indeed transported, but maybe he was sent to the USA instead of to Australia? I will need to look further into that possibility.

And no, I did not know his will was online! And when I checked just now, I saw more relatives popping up! However, as I don't have a creditcard, and ordering documents from The Netherlands is HUGELY expensive, I won't be able to download them *sniff*

But thanks for pointing it out to me, maybe I can do something about that in the future.

Warm regards,

Kya

[Melissa Jones]

Hi Kya,

I'm not a big expert on convict records (not having any convicts in my family), but I think that around the time Thomas Rosewell was transported, Australia was the main place for convicts to be sent. To my knowledge (and I stand to be corrected), transporting convicts to the US stopped in the late 18th century.

Based on that, it may be possible that, if Thomas was transported to Australia, that he was sent to one of the other colonies (states) such as Tasmania or South Australia. I've done a quick search on the on-line indexes but have been unable to find any Thomas Rosewell. Perhaps you might want to have a look on the indexes - a simple google search will bring up a number of indexes online.

The only other thing that I can think of is to try and search the UK convict shipping lists for Thomas to see if he is listed (and whether he was sent to Australia or another country).

I understand the costs associated with getting information from the UK can be expensive. The amount of money I've spent getting information sent from the UK to Australia has definately been alot! Oh well, at least you know it's there.

Regards,

Melissa