Convicts in Context

• • Unlocking secrets
  • Convict bodies
  • Living conditions
  • Life courses
  • Legacies

No eligibility requirements

Special requirements

No special requirements

Convicts in Context is a 100-level subject that builds on the skills and knowledge acquired in Convict Ancestors. It introduces you to advanced techniques that will assist you to understand convict lives, and help in situating these lives within larger contexts. The subject is designed to equip you with online learning skills and academic knowledge that consolidate your studies in genealogy and history. In this unit, you will learn a range of techniques that will help you to recover information about convict ancestors transported to the Australian penal colonies and their descendants. Drawing on an extensive database of 1.5 million records, you will learn how to place individual convict lives within a relevant wider context. This will enable you to understand more fully the circumstances that shaped the lives of your ancestors, their children, and their grandchildren. Topics will include how to make sense of information about occupation, height, age, and literacy; how to analyse tattoos and scar patterns; and to situate offending and health outcomes within the context of the wider factors that shaped the development of Australian colonial society.

• Module quizzes (40%)
• Transcription exercise (20%)
• Essay (40%)