Maitland researchers unearth convict links to journalist Ray Martin

At least 1000 of them landed in Maitland and the Hunter, and for the last five years, researchers at Maitland and Beyond Family History have been unearthing their stories.

Among those stories is that of Caroline Haines, which researchers say is the great, great grandmother of Australian journalist Ray Martin.

At a seminar this weekend, Maitland and Beyond Family History will launch its Rosebuds collection, featuring 90 handmade bonnets representing the children who came with their convict mothers.

Mothers like Ms Haines, who was just 15 when she was arrested for stealing from a man named William Miles in 1832.

Records show she took a shirt, two caps, one collar, ten yards of cotton, linen, two handkerchiefs and a shawl.

Her sentence: transport to Australia for seven years.

"Caroline supposedly, according to her family, had a gap between her two front teeth and that's come down through six generations," Maitland and Beyond Family History researcher Chris Barrett said.

"Ray Martin has a gap between his two front teeth."

Ms Haines married a man named Thomas Marsh at age 17 and later gave birth to a daughter named Elizabeth in April, 1841, who was baptised in East Maitland.

Years later, Elizabeth married a man named John Lamey in Tamworth. His father William was a convict who fell in love with a Kamilaroi woman named Bertha.

Thomas and Caroline had six children over 10 years. Their first born, Isaac died at age five in 1841 when a bullock dray driven by his father overturned.

Thomas survived, but according to his death notice he died on the March 19, 1846 after a long and severe illness at just 46 years old.

"After Thomas died, Caroline married Robert Schofield," Ms Barrett said.

"She ended up having six children more, between the two husbands she had about 10 children and some of the sons and daughters just did amazing things.

"One helped in the capture of a bush ranger, they did it tough and they were just amazing."

The Maitland and Beyond Family History group has made more than 1000 convict bonnets, each marked with the name of a local convict's name, the ship she arrived on and the year she arrived in the NSW colony.

Each woman is tied to Maitland and the Hunter Valley's pioneer history; they came to blows to take what they wanted, used their lascivious potential to their advantage and did what they had to to survive.

Many of the women transported to NSW and 'Van Diemen's Land' had children. Often only the youngest was allowed to accompany its mother.

The children who came to Australia were often sent to orphan schools around the age of three or four while their mothers were assigned elsewhere.

The mothers had to apply to have their children returned to them and prove they could adequately care for them.

Maitland and Beyond Family History's research of Maitland convict records show 260 women had 450 children between them, only 90 of which came with their mothers.

In memory of those children, the group has created its Rosebuds Bonnet Collection.

The collection which will be on display at the Female Convicts of Maitland and the Hunter Valley seminar on Sunday at Maitland Public School from 8.30am to 3.30pm.

Tickets are $50 including morning tea, visit mymaitland.com.au for more.