I'm constantly finding out new stuff about my Stevens family. Let's start at the beginning. Also, please feel free to move this somewhere else - it does feature plenty of characters in trouble with the law but I feel I must explain a few things as well.

First of all, as far back as I've been able to go, we have Robert Stevens who married Eleanor Collier in Cirencester in 1783.
They had the following children: Robert (1780) Chedworth; Mary (1784) Ched; Thomas (1785); Joshua (1788) Ambrose (1790), Emmanuel (1791), Hercules (1793 and possibly Renella (1798).
They were my great x 5 grandparents. Don't really know very much about them except that they didn't seem to be gypsies and pretty much were settled in Chedworth.
Of those children Robert (my great x 4 grandfather) and Joshua were sent off to Tasmania in 1830 for their part in the Swing Riots. I have more details on this at home. Joshua died in 1835 and Robert was pardoned but I don't know what happened to him.
Before he was packed off to Tas - Robert had married Jane (don't have her surname); Joshua married Mary Scott in Chedworth - Joshua's children don't seem to be influenced by the gypsy way of life and mainly stayed in Chedworth as ag labs etc.
However Robert and Jane's children did seem to be gypsies and I've found several of them in censuses through-out the years. One of them, Ambrose, was also sent to Tasmania and is described as a gypsy. They also had a daughter Charity who was sent to Tasmania in 1829 for stealing a donkey in Wiltshire. However no mention of gyspy roots there.
Their eldest son Emmanuel was also in trouble with the law and described as a Razor Grinder. His daughter Georgina was in court in 1857 for stealing a gold watch (the sentence of No Bill was passed) She's described as a tinker's daughter "black hair, black eyes, round face, dark complexion, scar on right shin, has gipsey appearance"

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