Terry, It was a crime until rather recently. Most unfair on the poor girls who had to find some way to make a living. Always seemed to be the providers on the wrong side of the law while the users went free. Kay, don't be too judgemental on your ancestor. Just because she died of a horrendous sexually transmitted disease it does not follow that she was a prostitute. Her husband could have brought the disease home, for example. Best regards, John PS. I am not a feminist. However, I do think the law was in error on this issue.

Hi John, I am not judgemental on the contrary I have a great deal of admiration for most convicts , whatever their crime! Jane was born in Tipperary and arrived on the Andromeda 11 in 1834, having been sentenced to 7 years for vagrancy. You could be right about her husband, Josiah, as he was also a convict (Asia 1 , 1832) and died a year before Jane at 48 but as official registration didn't start till the year Jane died (1857 and she was 47) there was no cause of death I can only assume he may have died from syphillus too! They became respected farmers of the Bathurst area. They only had 3 children ( at least 3 recorded) , unusual for that time and I have wondered if the VD was the reason and whether it can be passed to the next generation. One child appears to have died young but their son, my direct ancestor lived to 61 and their daughter lived to 87. Regards Kay On 05/02/2009, at 5:42 PM, John Bushell wrote: > > Kay, don't be too judgemental on your ancestor. Just because she > died of a > horrendous sexually transmitted disease it does not follow that she > was a > prostitute. Her husband could have brought the disease home, for > example. > > Best regards, > John > > PS. I am not a feminist. However, I do think the law was in error > on this > issue. > > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUS-PT- > JACKSON-CONVICTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

My research took me to the study of the normal course of venereal disease before modern treatments. I found that sexually transmitted diseases are endemic in poor societies such as early Sydney- there is a lot of literature about diseases in developing societies which you can access if you are interested. About two thirds of women with the infection have no symptoms at all or at most very trivial ones which may be passed off as an apparently harmless vaginal discharge. There is a book on Google called Women in Early America By Dorothy A. Mays which makes interesting online reading on the subject The normal untreated course which you can expect to see is a period of infertility, or recurrent miscarriages, each pregnancy getting longer, until one baby survives, and then the normal spacing of births can be seen. This of course depends on the exact disease as gonorrhoea and syphilis are different. In the example I was looking at, the couple married, and had no children for almost 6 years, there was a death of one child, a couple of neonatal deaths, with the cause of death given as prematurity, and the next child survived. The couple went on to have 5 or 6 surviving children. If one can't keep an open mind in family history, it's best to leave it alone. It's impossible to walk in their shoes, so its unreasonable to judge them. Rosie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kay White" <kaylwhite@optusnet.com.au> To: "John Bushell" <bush@cbn.net.id>; <aus-pt-jackson-convicts@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2009 7:23 PM Subject: Re: [PJ] Unknown Crime > Hi John, > > > I am not judgemental on the contrary I have a great deal of > admiration for most convicts , whatever their crime! > Jane was born in Tipperary and arrived on the Andromeda 11 in 1834, > having been sentenced to 7 years for vagrancy. > > You could be right about her husband, Josiah, as he was also a > convict (Asia 1 , 1832) and died a year before Jane at 48 but as > official registration didn't start till the year Jane died (1857 > and she was 47) there was no cause of death I can only assume he > may have died from syphillus too! > > They became respected farmers of the Bathurst area. > > They only had 3 children ( at least 3 recorded) , unusual for that > time and I have wondered if the VD was the reason and whether it can > be passed to the next generation. > One child appears to have died young but their son, my direct > ancestor lived to 61 and their daughter lived to 87. > > Regards Kay > > On 05/02/2009, at 5:42 PM, John Bushell wrote: > >> >> Kay, don't be too judgemental on your ancestor. Just because she >> died of a >> horrendous sexually transmitted disease it does not follow that she >> was a >> prostitute. Her husband could have brought the disease home, for >> example. >> >> Best regards, >> John >> >> PS. I am not a feminist. However, I do think the law was in error >> on this >> issue. >> >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUS-PT- >> JACKSON-CONVICTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' >> without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > AUS-PT-JACKSON-CONVICTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' > without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message