The group met with coffee at the Wagga Rules Club on Saturday and were given a talk on the city's history from Wagga and District Historical Society president Geoff Burch.

While researching her family history in 2013, Jeannette Adams from Wagga, discovered that she was related to two convicts who were among 11 people on the First Fleet with African descent.

"I find out through joining ancestry.com and connecting with a third cousin in Moss Vale, who gave me all the documentation," she said.

"Very few people know that there were 11 black men on the First Fleet."

John Randall was a slave in the American colonies who escaped by taking up a offer to fight for the British Empire in the War of Independence.

Mr Randall fled to England when the American colonies won the war, but with no pension or employment he was forced to steal to survive and was sentenced to transportation over the theft of a watch.

John Martin was either born into slavery in either Barbados or America and was recruited into the British Navy but jumped ship to England and was caught stealing clothes.

"They were sent across in the First Fleet after the American War of Independence because they had no way of surviving so they stole," Mr Adams said.

Both Randall and Martin arrived in Australia via the convict transport ship Alexander in the first fleet.

John Martin married the daughter of John Randall, Mary, thereby creating a family that historians have estimated to have tens of thousands of descendants.

"I couldn't believe this myself when I found out, because my father and his brothers and all that generation had all passed away when I found this out," Mrs Adams said.

"It's on my father's side and looking back my dad had nice curly hair and dark eyes."

Mrs Adams' research determined she is descended from Mary's daughter, Frances Martin.

Fellowship of First Fleeters Albury-Wodonga District Chapter president Paul Gooding said the meeting on Saturday in Wagga had been "brilliant".

"Nine of the attendees came from Albury and the rest were from Wagga...we had a few new people come," he said.

"More and more people are becoming interested in genealogy, which then takes them into their own ancestry and people have had more time in the last 12 months to delve into it while at home."

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