[wideawake]

New Zealand was not used for penal transportation as a matter of British policy. Australia was, but 95% of its early settlers were voluntary emigrants. The US state of Georgia also began as a penal colony, but only a tiny percentage of its white inhabitants were prisoners.

[tanknetter]

The US state of Georgia also began as a penal colony, but only a tiny percentage of its white inhabitants were prisoners.

Thanks for the info! I knew about Georgia, because that's where another branch of my family went (my branch, at least from my paternal grandfather's side, were millwrights and therefore better off than the other branches ... and didn't show up here in the US until the early 1920s.) That branch is mostly out in Utah now, having become Mormons.