Sometimes it can be difficult to determine exactly when and where your convict ancestor arrived in Australia. You may need to check a few of the following sources to find the person you are looking for.

Upon arrival, a convict was usually assigned to a master, the Female Factory or to Public Works. Who and where a convict was assigned to was recorded in an assignment register. 

If they were well behaved, convicts were not usually required to serve out their full term.

From January 1788, when the First Fleet of convicts arrived at Botany Bay, to the end of convict transportation 80 years later, over 160,000 convicts were transported to Australia.

Historic newspaper archives, such as the British Library Newspapers and the Irish Newspaper Archive, can be accessed by registered library users via our eResources.

Female convicts were predominantly young, single women who had been domestic servants and/or who had come from a semi-skilled background - such as an apprenticeship.

The Library has the largest collection of sheet music in the country, with over 300,000 items. The bulk of the collection relates to Australian composers, performers and music publishing houses.

You can access the music collection both in the Library and online, and you can order your own copies through our Copies Direct service. Due to the unique and fragile nature of the collection many items are not available for interlibrary loan. 

You can begin your search by entering your search terms into the "Search our collections" text box and clicking Search. This will show results from our catalogue, our eResources and our finding aids. From there, click the "View catalogue results" button.

The Library has an immense collection of 19th century music published in Australia, material about contemporary Australian composers and 20th century popular music published in Australia.