Hi Margaret, First of all welcome to the club!! there are many Australians that are connected to Convict ancestry... depending on if you have an area of Australia in particular that you want to know about.. or if its a general thing you are interested in. But to give you an idea... the first convict settlement was the first fleet in Sydney 1788... therefore Sydney (New South Wales) is the major resource for convicts in Australia... and several of the other states were parts of New South Wales for the early part of their history. Now me personally I live in Queensland whose capital city is Brisbane... but in early days it was called Moreton Bay. Convicts sent to Moreton Bay were generally re-offenders Meaning that they have committed another crime after their arrival in Australia... there were many other places such as Norfolk Island etc etc that also served as secondary penal establishments. However until 1859... Queensland was part of New South Wales... therefore the majority of records and information pertaining to the convicts of Moreton Bay is held in New South Wales... through the wonderful art of later file sharing we now have access to many of those records... but not all... the aforementioned and widely accepted resource for Moreton Bay (Brisbane) Convict heritage is J.G. STEELE's "BRISBANE TOWN IN CONVICT DAYS- 1824-1842" this superb collection of all things Convict in the area is just remarkably put together. Since the publishing of this book however we have even more access to other records... and more information is coming to be over time.. which is usually the case with Technology.. But this book will tell you basically the In's and outs of the Convicts at Moreton Bay.. widely accepted as one of the most Brutal of Penal Establishments though I personally feel that Norfolk Island takes the cake in this arena. Now as for where your relative ended up.. and what happened to them.. most of which we now have access to records on the Internet... especially for New South Wales, Tasmania, and certainly some Major ones that I am a part of in Queensland.... you however being in England.. have access to records that we don't.. and many of us are quite envious of the ability you have to look at the original trials.. (usually for the most petty of things) and certainly the British history pertaining to the reasons the convicts had to be sent here in the first place.... I am sure that there will be other people recommending books to you as well.. and I am certainly no expert on the matter... I do however have access to a lot of the Queensland Records in their original form.. and some filmed copies from New South Wales... so should that be where your research takes you .... its only a query away. My biggest Recommendation is to stay a member of this list... I have learned more here than I have from any book.... (remember what is written in a book is not always correct.. and often merely someones personal opinion) while this list like many others have their occasional hiccups.. like the one we have had here in the past week or two... with a couple of people having a few jabs here and there.. like any community if you just switch off the information that you don't wish to receive and receive that which you do... the benefits far outweigh the negativity. Good Luck with your research.... and if I can be of any help please don't hesitate to ask! Regards Sue.