Well, my DNA strategy to find out more about my family's convict roots will take time so it's not the quick fix that I thought it might be. But really it was wishful thinking dependent on there being descendents from my two transported convict ancestors, Francis Cavanagh and Thomas Arment. It may be that my Australian DNA matches who show up on Ancestry were immigrants after the convict era. There is one line, the McKay/Chubb line, that I was able to follow through the military records of William McKay in which the family was bounced from place to place and finally, when he retired, they moved from Bangalore to New South Wales. The McKay/Chubb family were on my maternal side and Ancestry indicates that my Australian journeys are paternal. Still, I found one DNA match from Australia that seems to be related to that maternal line. From other matching surnames I've found among my Southern Hemisphere matches, I think there were some later immigrants who maybe came during the 10£ Pom era.
To further my knowledge, I'm reading about the history of Australian settlement. I'm currently working my way through A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia and intend to pick up some books on Australian genealogical research at the library. Maybe I'll find a way to take my research on Francis Cavanagh further.
Sources:
Ancestry –
DNA matches
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