Home Children (1869-1930)

Search Help

• Background
• Database
• Immigration Records
• Search Screen
• How to Interpret the Results
• Boards of Guardians
• Search Screen
• How to Interpret the Results
• How to obtain copies
• Other Resources

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Background

Between 1869 and the late 1930s, over 100,000 juvenile migrants were sent to Canada from Great Britain during the child emigration movement. Motivated by social and economic forces, churches and philanthropic organizations sent orphaned, abandoned and pauper children to Canada. Many believed that these children would have a better chance for a healthy, moral life in rural Canada, where families welcomed them as a source of cheap farm labour and domestic help.

After arriving by ship, the children were sent to distributing homes, such as Fairknowe in Brockville, and then sent on to farmers in the area. Although many of the children were poorly treated and abused, others experienced a better life here than if they had remained in the urban slums of England. Many served with the Canadian and British Forces during both World Wars.

The Home Children database is being produced by the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO) [www.bifhsgo.ca/] in cooperation with Library and Archives Canada. BIFHSGO volunteers go through different archival fonds held at Library and Archives in order to locate names of children. So far, passenger lists (1869-1922), selected files from the Immigration Branch: Central Registry Files (1869-1935), the Department of Agriculture (1869-1892) and other governmental fonds, 1869-1935 (e.g. RG 25, 15, 2, 31) have been consulted. BIFHSGO volunteers have also indexed the records of the Boards of Guardians (1886-1916). Other fonds have been identified and will eventually be consulted and indexed.

To read more about Home Children, you may wish to visit the Young Immigrants to Canada Web site [www.dcs.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html]. There you will find information about homes and organizations, reunions, titles of books on the subject and some lists of children's names.

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Database

The database provides access to 118,516 references to Home Children records held at Library and Archives. It consists of:

• 96,597 names from passenger lists
• 11,241 names from other immigration records
• 10,678 names from the Boards of Guardians records

You can search for names of Home Children extracted from passenger lists and other immigration records through Search Immigration Records.

You can search for names of Home Children appearing in Boards of Guardians records through Search Boards of Guardians.

Passenger Lists

Library and Archives Canada holds passenger lists from 1865 to 1935 (RG 76). These lists constitute the official record of immigration to Canada in that period. Most are arranged by date and port of arrival. Passenger lists from 1869 to 1922 were consulted to find names of Home Children. In cases where passenger lists are not available or not legible, other immigration records have been consulted. Information about our passenger lists can be found on our Canadian Genealogy Centre Web site www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/index-e.html under Sources by Topic: Immigration: Passenger Lists 1865-1935. Lists of microfilm reel numbers are provided. Most of the passenger lists have been digitized and can be viewed online through our Passenger Lists 1865-1922 database.

Other Immigration Records

In cases where a passenger list was not available or the passenger list was partly or completely illegible, the researcher may have retrieved the information from alternate sources, such as the following:

• Manifest indexes (RG 76, C 2)
  Transcripts created by the former Immigration Branch in which the names on each passenger list were grouped alphabetically for that ship. They rarely contain more than the name and age of each passenger. These lists are arranged by date of arrival, regardless of port. They cover the years 1906 to 1920 and appear on microfilm reels T-521 to T-529, T-5520 to T-5569, T-16185 to T-16191.
  
  
• Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files (RG 76, B 1 a)
  These files include correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. They include annual reports, information booklets and some lists of the names of children sent to Canada. They cover the years 1892 to approximately 1946 and appear on microfilm reels: C-4655 to C-4800, C-7298 to C-7869, C-10233 to C-10327, C-10397 to C-10448, C-10577 to C-10687. To obtain a volume and file number for those references, please consult our database for Government of Canada Files. Select Record Group 76 (Immigration) and use the name of the sending organization as a keyword, for example Barnardo$.
  
  
• Department of Agriculture, Central Registry Files (RG 17)
  Prior to 1892, the Immigration Branch was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. The Central Registry files include some correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. The records rarely contain names of children. To obtain a volume and file (docket) number, please consult our database for Government of Canada Files. Select Record Group 17 (Agriculture) and use the name of the sending organization as a keyword, for example Barnardo$. Note that these records are not available on microfilm.
  
  
• U.S. passenger lists
  Some children arrived at American ports and are recorded on passenger lists not held by Library and Archives Canada. In those cases, the researchers have consulted the American passenger lists held by the National Archives in Washington, D.C., which are available on microfilm through the LDS Family History Library™. They are identified in the index with LDS reel numbers.
  
  
• Records held by of other institutions
  When a reference is provided to documents held by another institution, such as the Colonel Lawrie's Papers at the provincial archives of Nova Scotia, you must contact the specified office for information about those records.

Boards of Guardians

A Board of Guardians was the locally elected administrators of poor relief for each Union, and a Union was a group of parishes that administered poor relief and built a workhouse. Names of children sent from England by Boards of Guardians between 1886 and early 1916 can be found on microfilm reel T-537.

This database contains 10,678 names of children. It represents approximately half of the Workhouse children sent to Canada between 1869 and 1935. The year of immigration recorded in the register is not always correct. It is therefore suggested that researchers cross reference to the immigration records for the correct year of immigration.

Important note: BIFHSGO volunteers created a database from reels of microfilmed records. Some of the original documents are very difficult to read. We invite clients to report errors via email at cgc-ccg@lac-bac.gc.ca.

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Immigration Records

Search Screen

The search screen allows you to search by:

Name

Given Name

Year of Arrival

Ship

Keywords

You can enter optional terms in the Keyword field, such as the destination or sending organization, for example Brockville or Middlemore.

Note that some entries include only an initial for the given names. Try searching by surname only.

You can narrow your search by including additional search terms, but keep in mind that if your request is too specific you may rule out possibilities of which you are unaware. For example, the child may have been sent by a different organization than the one you believe, or he/she may have arrived in a different year.

Note that the name of the sending organization might not appear in the passenger list.

When you have entered your search terms, click on "Submit". The number of hits found will be shown at the top of the results screen.

How to Interpret the Results

Your search results will be posted as a results summary list from which you will be able to obtain more detailed descriptions.

Results Summary List

The results list contains the following fields:

Name

Given Name

Age

Sex

Ship

Year of Arrival

You can export the results to a diskette or to your own computer.

Click on the underlined name of the person of interest to you to access the detailed description.

Detailed Description

The detailed description contains the following fields:

You can view the names of children traveling together by clicking on Group of Children traveling together at the bottom of the description.

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Boards of Guardians

Search Screen

The search screen allows you to search by:

Name

Given Name

Year of Arrival

Ship

Keywords

You can enter optional terms in the Keywords field, such as the destination or sending organization, for example Brockville or Middlemore.

Note that some entries include only an initial for the given names. Try searching by surname only.

You can narrow your search by including additional search terms, but keep in mind that if your request is too specific you may rule out possibilities of which you are unaware. For example, the child may have been sent by a different organization than the one you believe, or he/she may have arrived in a different year.

Note that the name of the sending organization might not appear in the Boards of Guardians records.

When you have entered your search terms, click on "Submit". The number of hits found will be shown at the top of the results screen.

How to Interpret the Results

Your search results will be posted as a results summary list from which you will be able to obtain more detailed descriptions.

Results Summary List

The results list contains the following fields:

Name

Given Name

Age

Sending Agency

Taken into Care by

Year of Arrival

You can export the results to a diskette or to your own computer.

Click on the underlined name of the person of interest to you to access the detailed description.

Detailed Description

The detailed description contains the following fields:

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How to Obtain Copies

Note that most of our passenger lists have been digitized and are available online. Use our Passenger Lists 1865-1922 database to view the passenger list of interest to you. You can make a search by ship name, date and port of departure or date and port of arrival.

Other immigration records held at Library and Archives Canada and the Boards of Guardians records are available on microfilm and may be borrowed for your use by any institution.

How to Access Library and Archives Canada Records

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Other Resources

Other archival records exist for Home Children. Consult Home Children for more information about these records.