Free access to convict records

Convict records documenting the lives of more than 165,000 people transported to Australia in the 1700s and 1800s have been placed in Unesco's Memory of the World Register.

The records are among just 158 items to be inscribed on the register since 1997.

The document is called The Convict Records of Australia: written account of the deportation over 80 years (1788-1868) of some 165,000 convicts from the United Kingdom, who founded the independent Australian Commonwealth.