where is van dieman's land?

[echokilo]

where is van dieman's land? have just found reference to this place on the 1881 census for a relative linign in Worcestershire ..... but where is/was it?

[jno]

old name for Tasmania

[dundurn]

Tasmania?

[juliacornwal]

Tasmania ... hanging off the bottom of New Zealand.

[echokilo]

Oh my word!!! Had no idea ...... this is someone who married into my family in 1881 ..... why would she have arrived in Worcestershire .... I though we were sending human traffic the other way then!!????

[spudqueen]

Tasmania - but not hanging off the bottom of New Zealand, rather off the south east coast of Australia
http://www.wordtravels.com/images/map/Australi a_map.jpg

[kempie]

Convict transportation to Van Diemen's Land (the primary penal colony in Australia from the 1830s onwards) ended in 1853, quickly followed by the name change to Tasmania.
1868 saw the last British convicts transported to Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Diemen%27s_La nd

[jno]

Australia wasn't a penal colony any more. People went both ways as they do now; Brits want to emigrate but Tasmanians may think to make their fortunes in Britain, or go in search of families they or their parents left behind.

[123everton]

It's between junctions 7 to 15 on the M62.

[echokilo]

Thanks everyone - I am most enlightened!

EK