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Tracing NSW gaol inmates

Researching criminal offenders in the State Archives Collection

Gaol records can provide so much detail about your ancestors – where they came from, what they looked like and some of the things they did. In this webinar we show you how to use the State Archives collection to trace your ancestors through the NSW prison system, uncovering their crimes and incarcerations.

Chapters

0:00 Introduction

0:31 Administrative and historical overview

2:54 Useful definitions and abbreviations

5:20 Typical Gaol inmate records

5:46 Entrance books

8:23 Description books

9:48 Entrance & description books

10:57 Discharge books

12:05 Photographic description books/sheets

16:50 Prisoner cards

20:52 Miscellaneous Gaol records

25:43 How do you know when/where someone was incarcerated?

30:12 Searching for Gaol records in the NSW State Archives Collection

34:36 Further records

Related

No. 659 Matilda ‘Tilly’ Devine. Photographed 27 May 1925, State Reformatory for Women, Long Bay. Gaol photograph, Prisoner photographic index

Gaol inmates & prisoners guide

Find out what types of prison records are available and how to access them

Gaol photograph of A. G. Scott, alias Captain Moonlight

Gaol inmates & prisoners photos index 1870-1930

Search over 52,000 mugshots from NSW prisons. Alongside the photos are details such as name, aliases, native place, year of birth, details of arrival in the colony, occupation, physical description, marks or special features, where and when tried, offence, and sentence

Mugshot of Lottie May Little, 1917

Gaol photographs

We have indexed and digitised this collection of photographs of men, women and children who were incarcerated in the NSW prison system c1870–c1930

Crime stories

Mugshot of an elderly woman on a gaol admission form

Margaret Greenwood: a life of crime

This 1875 record contains a rare and revealing photograph of a former Imperial convict, a prisoner again in her old age

Gaol photo of Arthur Astill

Captured: Portraits of Crime, Arthur Astill

Arthur Astill, a 16 year old labourer from Orange in central west NSW, was photographed at Dubbo Gaol on 24 January 1893 while awaiting trial for murder

Full length police photo of man in suit and hat, standing in front of chair.
WW1

Sensational car chase

John Talbot Wright was arrested on 11 September 1920 after a sensational car chase through city streets

Two photos side by side, first showing seated man, second showing man standing, with hat on.
WW1

Returned from active service

In July 1921 James Arthur Banfield was arrested by Sydney police, photographed and charged on three counts of larceny

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