Dedicavit

memoriam

Lesley Uebel

Established by genealogist Lesley Uebel, the Claim a Convict website originally went online on the 19 August 1998. The site offered researchers a free service that enabled those researching the same convicts ancestors to contact each other directly by email. Although the site did not include every convict that arrived, the lists provided an invaluable resource to the research community. Unfortunately Lesley fell ill during the second half of 2013, passing away on the 20 January 2014.

It was during the latter part of 2013 when Lesley's website was no longer active, a small team of individuals set about to get the website back online. Particular mention and thanks should be made to Lesley's husband, Colin Kennedy, and friend, Coralie Hird, for their work in getting the original website files to the current Claim a Convict team of Michelle Nichols and Jonathan Auld. At the beginning of 2014 the data contained on the original website files was converted into a more manageable format and a new database driven interface was designed for the site by Jonathan Auld.

As a result of linking the data together, the site is now more interactive and should benefit researchers in finding their convict(s) of interest. Although email addresses are required so that fellow researchers can contact claimants, no email addresses are publicly published on the site. In order to claim a convict, researchers will be required to create a user account to enable access to the Contributor's Section (accessible through the login option at the top right of the page) - at present this process is moderated and will require approval from the site Administrator. For researchers who had previously claimed a convict on the original website, it is a simple matter of requesting a password in order to activate your account via the Forgotten your Password page.

Do you have a Lost Convict not listed on this website? Originally not all convicts or ships were listed, but work will be going on behind the scenes in order to bring a facility to registered users so that recommendations can be made in order to get these lost souls listed - stay tuned.

The Claim a Convict website is dedicated to the memory of Lesley Uebel.

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