A NEW South Wales man is desperate to know if there are any surviving descendants of a sheep-stealing Forest relative transported to Tasmania 150 years ago.
"Thomas Pace in 1844 stole a sheep at Coleford and was sentenced to 10 years," writes Ken Pearson from Naremburn.
"He served time at Gibraltar, presumably on one of the hulks. He was a miner and lime-burner, skills desperately needed in the colonies, and in 1851 he was sent to Van Diemen's land – now Tasmania.
"This side of side of convict life is misappreciated – convicts were not all hardened criminals but people tried for petty crimes in a period of industrial revolution and land clearances.
"Convicts were picked for their skills, not only to develop the colonies but also to send back to England much needed timber, boats and other products."
Mr Pearson says Thomas's wife, Ann (nee George) and two children followed him out when he became a free man and got his 'ticket of leave' in 1854. However, life was not kind to him.
"Ann's early death in 1866 saw Thomas exercising his bad skills – another sheep theft and another period of internment at Port Arthur in 1870," he writes.
"Thomas was one of the last convicts at that institution and was photographed with all the other inmates."
Mr Pearson says he is keen to make contact with the Pace family (sometimes it was written 'Paice') and the George family.
The famous Pace murder trial of 1929 may or may not be connected with his family, he adds.
Anyone able to help can write via the Review or e-mail Ken Pearson on ken.pearson@dpws. nsw.gov.au