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
Gaol inmates & prisoners guide
Find out what types of prison records are available and how to access them
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
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
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
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
WW1
Sensational car chase
John Talbot Wright was arrested on 11 September 1920 after a sensational car chase through city streets
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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