BBC launches "Who Do You Think You Are" magazine

The BBC is to launch a Who Do You Think You Are? magazine off the back of the successful genealogy series of the same name.

The new 100-page full-colour magazine will be produced by BBC Magazines Bristol and launches on September 25 for a cost of £4.25. Each issue will include a DVD or CD with clips of the BBC show and archive material. A website to support the magazine goes live later this week.

Genealogy website Ancestry.co.uk - which also sponsored the live show - will reportedly act as the data provider for the BBC website.

Convict History Revealed Online

Records of thousands of British convicts sent to Australia in the 18th and 19th centuries have been made available to search online.

More than two million Britons and an estimated four million Australians are related to convicts deported from Britain to Australia, according to genealogy website Ancestry.co.uk.

The 165,000 convict records typically contain convict's name, date and place of sentencing, length of sentence and the crime committed.

Ancestry.co.uk spokesman Josh Hanna said: "This is the first time that these unique records have ever been brought together in one place online, making them accessible to so many."

"While Australia's convict history itself has been well documented, there are thousands of individual stories in the collection just waiting to be told.”

Although felony, larceny and burglary described the overwhelming majority of crimes, a few of the records reveal some people were sent to an Australian penal colony for such crimes as stealing heifers or burning clothes.