Free Transportation From England to Australia...

England, in 1787, was not a good place to be if you were poor. A young girl called Ann Forbes was poor and living in England. She was found guilty of stealing cloth worth 20 shillings. [She was originally sentenced to death but that was changed to 'seven years transportation'.] That meant being put on a 'hulk' in the Thames. As these 'hulks' filled up the prisoners were transferred to 'prison ships' to be transported to a very remote recently discovered part of the world that we now call Australia.

And so, a 19 year old girl was sent to the ends of the earth, and another pesky person was swept from English society. The 'First Fleet' as it is called had three Man-of-War ships as escorts and about 12 prison ships. The voyage took months, under harsh conditions as you can imagine. They landed in/near Botany Bay but then moved north a bit to a place called Port Jackson, [now called Sydney].

Ann Forbes survived. She did more than survive, she married, three times actually, and had many children.

Today we visited with Robert and Bronwyn Newton, in Port Macqarrie, NSW. Robert and Bronwyn were my Tai Chi instructors two years ago on a world voyage, where I took over 60 Tai Chi classes with them. [No, I am not good at Tai Chi!].


One day at sea it was too rough to do the lessons so Robert entertained us by reciting some Aussie verses and telling a bit about themselves. During that time he indicated that Bronwyn was a 'First Fleeter', [she could trace her ancestry to those prisoners who landed in 1788]. Ann Forbes was Bronwyn's first relative in Australia, arriving on the ship 'Prince of Wales'.



Two years earlier, we met Rod and Lyn on a world voyage. During that time Lyn indicated that she was descended from a 'First Fleeter'. When Robert told of Bronwyn's ancestry, I emailed Rod in Australia and asked the details of Lyn's lineage. Rod indicated that Lyn was descended from Ann Forbes who came over on the 'Prince of Wales'. I was dumfounded, we only know three couples in all of Australia, what are the chances of that happening?

Bronwyn and Lyn each have a massive book listing the ancestors and lineage of all of Ann's 24,000 known relatives. [Ann and her descendants were very prolific.] The book is called 'Transported to Paradise" a genealogy of Ann Forbes. It weighs about five pounds.


We are boggled to think of their exact relationship, except that their great, great, grandmother and grandfather were brother and sister!

Little did that 19 year old cloth-thief from England ever think that her name would live on...

[The foregoing is correct to the best of my knowledge, some details are likely wrong. I am relying on my memory and bits and pieces that I have picked up over the years, plus a little help from Google.]