When the Napoleonic war veteran Warren Kerr was caught stealing from his MP, justice was brief and brutal: he was sentenced to death. Luckily for him, his life was spared. Unluckily, along with thousands of other convicts, he was sentenced to the next worst thing: deportation to Australia.

Kerr's story is one of 55,000 posted on the internet today detailing the fate of thousands of British convicts sentenced to transportation. An ancestry website outlines how Kerr was convicted of stealing from Samuel Thornton, MP for Hull, in 1815. A trial at London's Old Bailey heard that he had stolen rings and watches from Thornton's London home while working there. The death sentence was later commuted and Kerr, a decorator, was transported by convict ship to New South Wales.

One inthree Britons have a convict ancestor, according to Ancestry.co.uk, which is publishing the records to coincide with Australia Day on Tuesday. Details on the website of those who were deported include their crime, trial, the name of the ship, physical description and occupation.

The records, part of a four-year project to make details of more than two million deportees available, feature the Convict Registers of Conditional and Absolute Pardons, 1791-1846, and the New South Wales Certificates of Freedom, 1827-1867, given to convicts in the colony.

They give vivid first-hand accounts of how Australia became the politically expedient safety valve for Britain's overpopulated jails. These were fit to burst after American colonies slammed the door on British deportees after the American War of Independence in 1776.

In 1787, the first 11 ships