It's true that many of our ancestors were convicted of crimes that got them transported to Australia or to prisons outside of Nottinghamshire.

Brian BINNS tells us (in 2016) that his 5 x great grandmother, Martha BINNS, was transported to "The American Colonies" for 7 years in 1775 after being found guilty of a felony.

Alas, I know of no records in early America that recorded such activity. Most family historians in America are unaware that their country was a recipient of prisoners at one time. I know that no British prisoners were transported to America after 1783.

• Australia, Transported Convicts: see these two Research Guides from The National Archives.
• Blacksheepancestors: UK Executions
• An extract from the book "Home Office 1782-1982" which includes some details about the prison service - Prisons over Two Centuries.

• The Complete Newgate Calendar is now online.
• Old Bailey Online - the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London's Central Criminal Court, 1674 to 1913: "A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court."
• Derek Wilcox's Black Sheep Index - "an index of Victims and Villains (and some heroes too) extracted from newspaper reports of court cases and inquests between 1865-1900" (archived copy).
• Capital punishment in the 18th & 19th centuries - many listings and articles.
• About Prison History - from the Open University's  International Centre for the History of Crime, Policing and Justice.
• The Digital Panopticon - "allows you to search millions of records from around fifty datasets, relating to the lives of 90,000 convicts from the Old Bailey".