tried bedfordshire 13/11/1816 19yrs old, recieved 7yrs for stealing a coat, sent to Australia on board Lord Eldon, parents unknown, 1816 residence Toddington, need info on trial and parents etc

See: http://www.schools.bedfordshire.gov.uk/gaol/

Josh KEENS is listed on the above..trial date 13th Nov 1816, aged 18
offence: stealing/larcenry of clothes
recorded as: stealing wearing apparel

Bedfordshire Records Office will have his gaol record [physical descrition of convict and behaviour while in Bedford gaol] and... hopefully a place of birth, e mail them: archive@csd.bedfordshiregov.uk

He would have been tried at Bedford Assizes, sent to Woolwich [the convict hulks] to await transportation.

The Assizes Records are kept at Public Records at Kew: http://catalogue.pro.gov.uk

Bedfordshire lookup exchange: http://users.bigpond.net.au/stellers/Lookup/bdf.html

Bedfordshire Family History: http://www.bfhs.org.uk/

thankyou very much catherine

Lesley
Try the Australian Society of genealogists
http://www.ag.org.au

lots of good pointers there too and background stuff on hulks, convicts etc

catherine having trouble getting to some of the web sites u gave me especially the assizes records

Hi

Saw you we looking for family in Toddington.

thought you might be interested in the Toddington village site

Has lots of history about Toddington plus census and parish records
www.toddington.net/hist.htm

regards
noelle

Hi,
Sorry but this site is no longer in existance.
ifollowed your information as i to am searching for the family history on Joseph Keen deported to Australia for stealing.
Have you any snippets of information.
Regards
Rosemary Hidle nee Keen

Hi,
Have you had any luck in finding anything out about this elusive man, I'm beginning to believe he really did come from under a gooseberry bush.I really would like to be able to trace his parentage.
I have reasons to believe he was a member of my family,I can trace his family after deportation through a contact in Australia.
Have you any snippets of information you care to share with me?
Regards
Rosemary Hidle nee Keene
ps. My grandfather had the E added because he hated being called Keens.

Hi Catherine,
I dont know if you are still interested in Joseph Keen,I have got the information re his court case deportation etc as I am in contact with a lady in Australia who is a decendent of one of his children so i have that side of his family history,what I am interested in is his parentage,I think his birth etc is a very carefully kept secret ,I would inagine his parents were ashamed and therefor he disappeared.
Do you know if he had a sister called Elizabeth I can find her visiting Toddinton where Joseph was last found.in the census.
Hope you are still interested
Regards Rosemary Hidle nee Keene.
ps my grandad had the E added because he couldn't stand being called Keens

Things change in 5 years

Try http://apps.bedfordshire.gov.uk/grd/ for details of Joseph Keens. There are many hits against Keens on http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/advanced-search.aspx?... (repository: Bedford and Luton Archives & Records Service) - have you got copies of them all to see if there is anything to point to where he was born?

It wasn't unusual for people living at that time to fall foul of the law, so I doubt that Joseph's parents were so ashamed that they did a disappearing trick.

David

Record ID: 1666
Commital Year: 1816
Reference Doc: BLARS QGV10/1
ID in Reference Doc: 43
Age: 18
Gender: Male
Height: 5 feet 8 inches
Hair Colour: Brown
Complexion: Fresh
Residence(town/village): Toddington
Residence(county): Bedfordshire
Offence: Stealing a Green Coat
Committed By: Edward Tanqueray, Clerk
When Committed: 13/11/1816
Trial Session: Epiphany 1817
Type of Gaol: Bedford Gaol
Sentence: Transportation 7 years
General Remarks on Prisoner: Orderly and well behaved

Hi,
Thanks for your reply,I already have this information I am really looking for his parents,I know he was born in Bedfordshire ,possibly lived in Toddinton Beds,and I know of his family when he lived in Australia but cant find his parents.
Regards
Rosemary

I've checked the parish records for Toddington and ther are no "keens " register in the parish around the turn of the 18th Century, so I would image they came in from one of the surrounding parishes. You could try the poor Law papers to see if the family were getting assistance or if the were transported to another parish.

Just found your information regarding Joseph Keens,he was my 3x great uncle,son of James and Martha.
I am trying to find the surname of Martha,it seems to be the best ever kept secret,we as a family both in England and Australia have been searching for many years.Do you have the answer?
Rosemary Hidle

How do you know that he was born in Bedfordshire? All I can see is that he was resident in Toddington in 1816.

In 1841 the family was living in Eversholt, transcribed on Ancestry as Shun:
James Keen 60 Ag lab
Martha Keen 60
Abraham Keen 15
Susan Keen 14
All born in Beds

Martha was buried in Eversholt on 4 Nov 1846 age 64

James and Martha baptised seven children in Eversholt between 1806 and 1827, but there’s no Joseph. They may have been James KING and Martha ABRAHAM who married in Eversholt on 6 Feb 1806. More work would have to be done to see if Keen/King could have been the same person. The dates fit though, and the son in the census could have been named Abraham after Martha’s surname rather than as the better known first name.

The Joseph KEEN who was transported was age 18 on committal in Nov 1816, ie born well before James and Martha started baptising children. What evidence do you have that his parents were James and Martha – Australian marriage/burial certificates perhaps? A number of Ancestry trees show his parents as James and Martha too, but without any sources. I wonder if someone has looked for Keens in the area and come up with this family, and assumed that it must be the right parents, and the rest have copied. On the face of it, it looks wrong to me.

There was a Joseph KING baptised in Toddington on 6 March 1796, son of John and Mary. I wouldn’t rule him out without further research. But I don't think your William Keen son of James and Martha, baptised at Eversholt on 21 Sep 1806 is from the same family as Joseph Keen the convict

David

Hi David,
Thanks for your message,Joseph wouldn't have been included in the children of James and martha who were baptised between 1806-1827,he was born abt 1796 probably not living at home.
By 1817 he had been accused of stealing and sentenced to transportation for 7 years.During the court proceedings he was using the name Joseph Keens born in Milton Bryan Bedfordshire and working as a labourer,he was a servant in husbandry to Mr. William Atwood of Toddington.
The court case was reported in The Huntingdon Beds Cambs and peterborough Gazette and General Advertising reporting the court findings of him stealing a great coat property of John Wilson and a book containing the accost, relative to the poor of Milton Bryan.
I have looked through birth and baptism records of his children born in Australia and they all name Joseph and Susannah as their parents.Joseph married Susannah in Sydney Australia in 1834.
Why do you say that you think Joseph was born to John and Mary King and that William b.1806 and Joseph were not brothers.I agree the dates do fit in with Joseph's birth,I assume you have the Bedfordshire BMD on Cd unfortunately mine is at home in the UK,I am at the moment living in Queensland Australia,so cant even go to Bedford Arhives to search
You seem have a very wide knowledge of Bedfordshire families you have helped me with both my Chapman and Bunn families of which I am grateful.
Hope to hear from you with your thoughts.
Regards
Rosemary Hidle

Hi Rosemary

I'm pretty confident that the 1806 marriage in Eversholt between James King and Martha Abraham are the parents of your William Keen born later in 1806 in Eversholt and his subsequent siblings. It hadn't occurred to me before I went through the IGI looking for marriages in Beds between a James and a Martha that KING could be a variation of KEEN, particularly when spoken by an illiterate ag lab with a rustic Bedfordshire accent! So that discovery opened up new possibilities for Joseph KEEN

I'm equally sure that Joseph born c1797/8 wasn't the son of James and Martha. If he was born out of wedlock he'd have had the mother's maiden name and pressure would have been brought to bear on the parents to marry as otherwise the child could have been a financial burden on the parish. The assizes evidence that you've just given, that he said he was born in Milton Bryan, adds weight to my theory ie that he wasn't the son of James and Martha, as the Keens were an Eversholt family (yes, I know Milton Bryan and Eversholt are only a mile apart!).

I don't think that the Joseph KING in 1796 was necessarily the right Joseph. I tossed out the thought merely as being a possibility, worthy of further research by you Keen researchers - along with any other KINGS who can be found.

Of course, these are my thoughts on the entries in the parish register, and I don't expect everyone to put the same interpretation on them as I have. I've found over the years though that many situations can be explained by spelling variations and by simple logic. Some genealogists have great imaginations. I don't! I try to follow things logically and look laterally when needed. And often it comes down to the balance of probabilities. Is it likely that James King and Martha Abraham should marry in Eversholt then disappear off the face of the earth? And that James Keen and Martha should start baptising children in Eversholt a few months after the marriage with their own marriage not being found. I can't prove conclusively that they're one and the same couple. But on the balance of probabilities they are.

It doesn't help when Soundex, used on the IGI, doesn't pick up King as a variant of Keen, whereas the NBI does.

David