Blacksheep Ancestors

There are a number of websites devoted to the Blacksheep in the family.
Black Sheep Ancestors.com provides links to search prison records, insane asylum records for the US as wellas for the UK. There are also numberous links to historical court records, execution records and biographies of famous outlaws and criminals across the US, Uk and Canada.

The International Black Sheep Society of Genealogists (IBSSG) is an Association of Genealogists who have found "blacksheep ancestors" in their direct family lines, or under the "One Degree Rule" of the Society. The purpose of the Society is to discuss family blacksheep in order to learn more about them and share information about your "Black Sheep" with other members of the IBSSG! Many times having a Black Sheep in the family leads to a family "wall of silence" and research into the family becomes very difficult. Their Goal is to help find alternate routes to information sources, and to "normalize" the view of the blacksheep as a person, who has a place in the FACTUAL history of the family, without regard to behaviors.
Remember, the acts may be embarrassing to others in your family, but within the Society, you are not alone! Many have similar situations, and can relate (actually many are related) to the problems in doing this research.

Quarantine Station

The site was occupied by Aboriginal people before the arrival of colonists. Initially there was no need for quarantine.
In the 1820s the number of immigrants increased and Spring Cove was used in 1828 for the first time for quarantine purposes. In the early years, ill people were kept on board ship and others were accommodated in tents. Gradually buildings were added to the complex and these buildings reflect the beliefs and practices of the times in which they were built. The Quarantine Station was used to house newly arrived immigrants for 140 years.
New ways of treating infectious diseases combined with the speed of air travel meant that the Quarantine Station was not really needed after 1960. The last ship to be quarantined was the Nikki Maru in 1972.

The Quarantine Station website contains some excellent information about the its history and immigration http://www.manlyquarantine.com/

Manly Library has copies of records of those buried at the Quarantine Station.

Jean Duncan Foley in her book In Quarantine: A history of Sydney’s Quarantine Station 1828 – 1984, lists ships quarantined there, the dates of arrival, the number of deaths and the reasons for quarantine. If you suspect that an ancestor was quarantined there, you would need to check NSW State Archives www.records.nsw.gov.au for immigrant arrivals or cross check if you know the ship on which they arrived.