Quarriers apologises for historic child migration policy

Quarriers (https://quarriers.org.uk) has apologised for its historic child migration policy to Australia and Canada.

Chief Executive Alice Harper said: "We apologise to children migrated through Quarriers and to children who suffered abuse following migration.  While people and organisations - including Quarriers - believed at the time that the UK government's international migration scheme offered the chance of a better life, it was misguided and wrong. Vulnerable children were sent away and we recognise that some also suffered physical and emotional abuse, including sexual abuse."

The apology has been issued as the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry continues to hear evidence in Edinburgh. For more on the story visit https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50645316.

Library and Archives Canada hosts resources for Home Children who arrived in Canada between 1869 and 1932, with a dedicated page at www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/home-children-1869-1930/Pages/home-children.aspx. These were predominantly orphaned children sent by the British Government from the UK to new homes across its empire, although in some cases, parents and children were misled as to the fate of each other prior to their separation.

The British Home Children in Canada platform at https://canadianbritishhomechildren.weebly.com has additional resources which may help.

Sources for tracing Home Children sent to Australia can be determined from http://guides.naa.gov.au/good-british-stock/index.aspx.

Chris

Order Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Irish-Family-History-on-the-Internet-Paperback/p/16483. and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Tracing-Your-Scottish-Ancestry-through-Church-and-State-Records-Paperback/p/16848. Further news published daily on The GENES Blog Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.

New Canadian based Home Children organisations guide

Library and Archives Canada (www.bac-lac.gc.ca) has added a new guide to its website detailing the various sending and receiving organisations both in the UK and Canada involved with the movement of British Home Children from 1869-1932.

The guide includes background information about the respective organisations and and details on where to research them, including at Library and Archives Canada, Other Institutions, Research Online, and Research in Published Sources.

To access the guide visit www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/home-children-1869-1930/home-children-guide/Pages/guide-organizations-receiving-homes.aspx

(With thanks to the LAC blog at http://thediscoverblog.com/2015/12/10/home-children-a-guide-to-sending-organizations-and-receiving-homes/)

Chris

For details on my genealogy guide books, including my recently released Discover Irish Land Records and Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html. My Pinterest account is at https://www.pinterest.com/chrismpaton/.

BIFHSGO uploads British Home Children deaths database

The British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO) has added a new British Home Children deaths database to its website. For the full story read John Reid's blog post at http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/bifhsgo-adds-home-children-deaths.html.

(With thanks to John)

Chris

The latest British GENES podcast is available at http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/podcasts.html. For details on my latest book Down and Out in Scotland: Researching Ancestral Crisis, and my other genealogy guide books, please visit http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html.

British Home Children deaths in Canada database

The British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (http://bifhsgo.ca) has placed online a fully searchable database of some 2284 British Home Children deaths in Canada. The database is accessible at http://bifhsgo.ca/cstm_homeChildrenDeaths.php.

BIFHSGO also has several other Home Children databases available, produced in partnership with Library and Archives Canada, including:

Barnardo's Ups and Downs magazine
http://bifhsgo.ca/cstm_upsAndDowns.php

The Fegan Index
http://bifhsgo.ca/cstm_fegan.php

Middlemore Home Children index search
http://bifhsgo.ca/cstm_homeChildren.php

For more on the society's Home Children projects visit http://bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=4

(With thanks to @BIFHSGO)

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians, whilst my new book British and Irish Newspapers is also now out. And FindmyPast - please reinstate the original Scottish census citations on your new site.

Children's Homes website launches

Peter Higginbotham, best known for his Workhouses website (www.workhouses.org.uk), which provides information on British and Irish workhouses and poorhouses, has launched a new online site providing information on children's homes in the British Isles, Canada, Australia and Jamacia.

From the site:

The Children's Homes website aims to provide information on all of the many and varied institutions that — for whatever reason — became home for thousands of children and young people in Britain. They include a wide variety of establishments ranging from orphanages, homes for those in poverty, and children with special needs, through to reformatories, industrial and approved schools, training ships, and hostels.

You will find the site at www.childrenshomes.org.uk.

Chris

Now available for UK research is the new second edition of the best selling Tracing Your Family History on the Internet: A Guide for Family Historians. And for those wishing to take Scottish ancestral research a bit further, my next Pharos course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Records, commences May 14th 2014.

Oranges and Sunshine

A quick post here to mention a film that I saw recently when down under, which I mean to mention in my blog post on the trip. Whilst at sea we had a nightly cinema on the go, and on one particular evening my wife and I went to see a film called Oranges and Sunshine. We had no idea what the film was about - it was billed as being about a social work scandal in Nottingham by the ship's entertainment team, and as we had nothing better to do we decided to kill a couple of hours watching it.


In fact, Oranges and Sunshine turned out to be one of the most powerful films I have seen in recent years. The social work scandal was something just a little bigger than expected - the story of Margaret Humphreys uncovering the British Government's home children scheme, to deport children to Australia, New Zealand, Canada and other dominions around the world, and to bring it to the public's attention. Her efforts led to the formation of the Child Migrants Trust (www.childmigrantstrust.com), and eventually to an apology by the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in February 2010, who apologised on behalf of the British Government for the scheme which was first implemented in Victorian Britain and continued until 1939. It's a fairly grim watch at times, but ultimately uplifting.

You may have already seen it, but if not, the DVD is available from Amazon for less than a fiver - if you haven't seen it I would thoroughly recommend it. Definitely one every genie should see...

UPDATE: Here's the trailer:



Chris