Genealogy Forum UK

I've known for years of a tale about someone in my family who was transported to Australia. Now I have a few more details - it was supposed to be a boy who was caught stealing apples in Birmingham. According to the tale I've been told, this man had two daughters and a sheep farm in Australia, and the elderly daughters came back to visit some time probably before the first world war.

My problem is, that I know it's from my Jeavons side of the family, but not exactly who - so it could also be from one of the families who married in to the Jeavons's - (Burgess, Aston, Woodall, Jones etc). I'm going to try and make a list of possibles, but is it going to be a needle in a haystack?
The criminal records I've looked at don't have enough detail to know if it's a possible or not. I'm assuming stealing apples would be down as larceny, but is that the case?
I don't know if the daughters married or not, or from where in Australia they visited.
I do have a few people I've not tracked from birth to death, but in the case of the Jones family, I'm not even sure I've found them all.

I don't know enough about criminal records at the moment, so I'm not sure where to begin.

Conviction records can vary in description of the crime. Stealing could be recorded as Larceny, Simple Larceny, Theft and Stealing, sometimes even mentioning the items. "Theft of Coat from Person", "

snoopysue wrote:I've known for years of a tale about someone in my family who was transported to Australia. Now I have a few more details - it was supposed to be a boy who was caught stealing apples in Birmingham. According to the tale I've been told, this man had two daughters and a sheep farm in Australia, and the elderly daughters came back to visit some time probably before the first world war.

My problem is, that I know it's from my Jeavons side of the family, but not exactly who - so it could also be from one of the families who married in to the Jeavons's - (Burgess, Aston, Woodall, Jones etc). I'm going to try and make a list of possibles, but is it going to be a needle in a haystack?
The criminal records I've looked at don't have enough detail to know if it's a possible or not. I'm assuming stealing apples would be down as larceny, but is that the case?
I don't know if the daughters married or not, or from where in Australia they visited.
I do have a few people I've not tracked from birth to death, but in the case of the Jones family, I'm not even sure I've found them all.

I don't know enough about criminal records at the moment, so I'm not sure where to begin.

Hi Sue, doubt if you will find anything on the Theft of the Apples, the case would have been heard at the Assizes which dealt with lower level Crime, most of those Cases were never recorded, just in the door and out so to speak. If you had a surname you may find something on the Transportation by searching the National Archives Catalogue. After that it should be plain sailing, sites like Find My Past would be useful. Linell.

I think I'll start with list of the young men who disappear from the census and don't reappear, and take one branch at a time.
I do wonder though how I can be totally sure I've got the right person, as the records I've seen don't have enough info on them for me to be sure that it's the correct person, this is especially true with the Jones members of the family, as I'm sure they'll be several with the correct name!

Once the person gets to Australia would they be the next census? And what info is there on Australian records? I've no other Aussie family members so don't know what to expect.