The Jukes of Van Diemen's land? or, a Tasmanian problem family

A longitudinal survey into the membership distribution of a Tasmanian family is described. A search of most available sources was made to establish the full name and relationship of everyone with that family name born or landed in the colony since 1803. Over 450 names were collected and a family tree constructed containing, to date, 285 of the names. To begin with, research was based on the idea that this family was unchanged by time and formed a large homogenous group, potentially hopeless and difficult to help. The problem members were identified from social and other records and were found to form only a small proportion of the whole. None of the social agencies, private or State, corrective or remedial, helping or educational, had a true idea of the size of this family group or of the validity of their ideas about the constituent family members. This preliminary study suggests that most of their present ideas are incorrect, and are founded on honest but false impressions.