I Learned Something New From Who Do You Think You Are?

Who Do You Think You Are? on  TCL  in partnership with Ancestry.com featured Country & Western singer Trisha Yearwood last night.

For me this was a very interesting episode as I learned something quite new. Trisha was given her ancestry back to Samuel Winslett, born in England in 1744 who emigrated to Georgia around 1760.

Notice: Spoiler Alert if you have not watched this episode!

Samuel and one of his brothers (Aside: what happened to the third brother who was part of the deer taking??) were found guilty of killing deer that did not belong to them and sentenced to hanging. They were then reprieved and sent to Georgia as convicts. Samuel's sentence was 14 years and once he arrived in America, he and other convicts were sold at auctions. This blew me away! I knew of convict transportation to Australia, and I knew of indentured servants but I have never read or heard about convict transportation to America.

So I had a look around this morning and found an interesting article about this little-known period of American history.  Convict Transportation to America: Epilogue is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies. History fascinates me and I plan on reading the entire series today. Then I will purchase the Kindle version of the book Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America 

Many of my readers know that I'm fascinated with immigration. My first exciting find in genealogy was one of my immigrant ancestors and that set me on a path to discover every immigrant ancestor I have. I'm fascinated with the stories - why did an ancestor immigrate? And what was behind their choice of settlement? What was their journey like? That's why my website Olive Tree Genealogy specializes in Ships Passenger Lists and immigration substitutes.

One of my secondary passions is learning about the lives of those who were impoverished and sent to almshouses, workhouses and poor houses, or removed from their homes in Great Britain and sent to the colonies. I scour little known records such as the Poor Law Union Records to find names and stories of those who were forced from their homes. Many of these "convicts" were sentenced for crimes that involved hunger or poverty and as such I find myself once again caught up in the tragedies.

Do you have a story of a convict ancestor sent to America? I'd love to hear about him or her!

From Conquest to Identity: New Jersey and the Middle Colonies in the Seventeenth Century

Call for Papers

From Conquest to Identity: New Jersey and the Middle Colonies in the
Seventeenth Century
Trenton, New Jersey, March 27–29, 2014

Paper and panel proposals are invited for a conference on “From Conquest
to Identity: New Jersey and the Middle Colonies in the Seventeenth
Century,” to be co-sponsored by the McNeil Center for Early American
Studies, the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, the New Jersey
Historical Commission, and Kean University and to be held in Trenton,
New Jersey, March 27–29, 2014. Confirmed participants include Charles
Gehring, Evan Haefeli, Ned C. Landsman, Robert C. Ritchie, and the
members of the program committee: Wayne Bodle, Stanley N. Katz,
Christian Koot, Maxine N. Lurie, Jonathan Mercantini, Daniel K. Richter,
and Cynthia Van Zandt.

The 350th anniversary of the conquest of New Netherland and the founding
of English New Jersey provides an occasion to examine a number of topics
connected to the origin and evolution of the Middle Colonies. The
organizers are especially interested in the theme of innovation and
experimentation—both as these words were understood in the seventeenth
century and as an interpretive device for understanding the period—and
in interdisciplinary approaches, particularly but not exclusively those
drawing on archaeological research.

Among specific topics that might be explored are conquest, reconquest
and the reality of empire; geography and mapping; land use, property
holding, and European-Native interaction in the Hudson and Delaware
watersheds; and contrasting views of various issues from the imperial
metropole and the mid-Atlantic periphery. While the organizers are open
to a wide range of proposals relating the conference themes to broader
trends in seventeenth-century North American history, they particularly
hope this conference will provide a venue for discussion of new ways of
thinking about New Jersey and the Middle Colonies in the period from
1664 to 1689.

Proposals are welcome for papers of approximately thirty pages in
length, which will be pre-circulated to all conference participants.
Suggestions for complete panels will also be considered, but the
organizers reserve the right to accept, reject, or reassign individual
papers.

Please submit proposals of approximately 500 words, along with
curriculum vitae, to mceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu no later than Tuesday,
April 30, 2013. Accepted panelists will be notified by mid-June 2013.
Papers will be due for pre-circulation no later than January 15, 2014.
Some support for participants' travel and lodging will be available.