Hello from chilly England ;-) A comment made by Patti Vallance made me think - she said that not everyone's convict ancestors made the newspaper. After a while I realised that I had been spoiled a bit. My local newspaper, the Stamford Mercury, claims to be Britain's oldest newspaper. Most local historians disagree, but it has been around since at least 1712. Only from the 1790s/1800s though does it begin to contain anything of relevant interest to family/local historians. With regard convict ancestors, the Stamford Mercury reported on the following: Lincoln and Northampton Assizes Holland and Kesteven Sessions Stamford and Stamford Baron Sessions Peterborough Sessions Rutland Sessions In addition there I have seen the odd sessions report from this 'catchment area' So many records belonging to Stamford have vanished to the various County Record Offices - I say various, because if you look at Stamford in Lincolnshire you'll see it lies on the border of Rutland, Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. Not only that the town of Stamford itself is historically divided between 5 parishes in Lincolnshire and 1 in Northamptonshire. This means local historians traditionally travel to 4 CRO's (Cambridge, Leicester, Lincoln, Northampton) just to cover the Stamford area - I understand there was a lot of talk about Stamford and Rutland combining with parts of Northamptonshire to form a new county (big vote in favour here), but never went ahead. Crime committed by locals tended to be reported in fuller details; assize and session reports from outside of Stamford may therefore be selective and at the discretion of the reporter. As an example I've included the newspaper reports relating to John Plowright (the prisoner record of who Sue Wyatt is kindly looking up for me). http://www.btinternet.com/~mithril/jp.html There were obviously several other newspapers around at the time e.g. Lincoln Gazette and Northampton Mercury, but if anyone has tried to obtain details from the newspapers and no-one has come forward to help, let me know (I will need of course the name, court and date) and if it's been reported in the Stamford Mercury, I'll send you a transcript of anything I find. As an aside, I may have another transportee, John's older brother William Plowright was also sentenced to 7 years in 1838 - nothing further known. Not only that, a James Ploughwright, not related but of Easton on the Hill (a small village, but seemingly a hotbed of crime in the 1830s), had the same sentence given him at the very same sessions! Regards Tony Surname interests (any and all references) 1. Pilmore, Pilmer, Pilmoor, Pilmuir 2. Plowright, Ploughwright