Alexander McAdoo, Convict No. 44060

Several weeks ago I received an e-mail from Donna Hartfield Blaszkowski. We are both related through our 3X great grandfather Alexander McAdoo. In her e-mail, Donna asked if I was aware of Alexander’s incarceration in Australia. I had not come across this interesting piece of information in my research, and decided to see what I could find.

I was surprised to learn that there was considerable information available on line. I began researching sites related to Irish convicts sent to Australia around 1840. Sure enough, I discovered an Alexander McAdoo. He was convicted in 1842 in Donegal for stealing a cow, and sentenced to 15 years in prison on the island of Tasmania. He was transported to Tasmania on the convict ship North Briton. The ship left Dublin in December 1842, and arrived in Hobart, Tasmania in April 1843. Alexander was pardoned in 1851.

I constructed a timeline to see if the life events that I knew about made sense—and they did. But I was still not convinced that I had the right Alexander. I needed confirmation of a life event that would connect the convict Alexander to my 3X great grandfather. I was able to complete that task when I finally located a digitized record from the Archives Office of Tasmania of Alexander’s incarceration. That handwritten record contained the name of his wife, Catherine, and his trade, ploughman. My Alexander’s wife was Martha, and he was a Venetian carpet weaver.

So, it turns out that there were two Alexander McAdoos, both about the same age, and both from Donegal. Perhaps I will be able to connect the two families sometime, but for the moment I am not related to a McAdoo convict, although I must admit to one in my Hinchliffe family.