Genealogy Chat

Phew! Old Crone.... still I'm nudging this for keeps. Bob

just nudging, i might need it! carolexx

just me adding Regards Laura

Yet another nudge x

WOW,thanks for that.......my grandfather was shipped out to canada in about 1910.......i can't wait to have a look! rachie

Nudge incase I need it, good info.

I found a good site that lists all sorts of schools. including training and industrial schools and institutions for disabled children: missing-ancestors.(com) remove brackets. A lot of disabled children were removed from their parents as well and lost contact. I think the advice at the time was put your child in a home forget about it and have another one. I feel strongly about this as I have a disabled child myself.

The book/ documentery 'The leaving of Liverpool' was a very sad but enlightening story all about child migration. Although I lived quite near Liverpool and all this went on untill 1975 I never heard a word about it, it's shocking what they did to young children told them they were orphans when the families were still alive. Chris.

nudging just in case Ashley

Need to add my name for future ref: Twinkle

Hi All, Without 'parental consent' is a little misleading. Many children placed in homes were never to see their parent(s) again from the time they were placed in the 'Home'. Parent(s) married, re-married or moved to addresses unknown. Does anyone know what percentage of children placed in homes were ever reuinted with their families. I think you'll find it was a very small percentage. Don't forget that during the times mentioned above many were shipped to Australia, although Canada was the prefered destination to send the children. I am fairly certain that Paul Barton, Special Agent (GR member) wrote a very informative piece about this the other day which impressed me. It seem to show that he either had some personal knowledge or that he had done his homework well. Bye Paul

I've just re-read my own message and think it's a bit harsh. Many parent(s) would never be allowed the opportunity to recover their children. Life was not as it is today and although some children were reunited with their parents unfortunately most were not. There were a lot of social and family pressures. So the idea of a clearout as said above is not a surprise. As a child in care I was constantly reminded about a bus that turned up one day at the Home and selected children being marched out to it. They were all to start a new life overseas. There was a tall tree some 30 to 40' high at the front of the building which one of the boys climbed and refused to come down. He did not want to go. He did eventually come down. Whether he was persuaded or brought down I'll never know. What I do know is that they were all shipped off. This took place several years before I was placed in the Home. The story was still circulating among the older boys in the home some 4 to 5 years later by which time I was then old enough to understand what had happened. Paul

thanks again for the sites mentioned very helpful

another nudge - just in case it's needed

Paul You only have to look at the Visitng Rules for Dr Barnardoes Homes round about the 1930s... Visiting - last Saturday morning of each month.(Saturday being a normal workday for most people then). Parents only to visit, or older sibling BY ARRANGEMENT and written permission. No food to be brought into the Grounds. No child to be taken out of the grounds. You would have had to be a pretty persistent parent or sibling to keep that regime up, and you stood the possibility that your child had been shipped out without your knowledge! And on the subject of handicapped children - I found an unknown sister of my Great Grandfather, languishing in a Workhouse, described as Imbecile. At the age of 39 she was reclassified as deaf and dumb. I wept buckets, particularly as this Workhouse was a stone's throw from the Manchester School for the Deaf and Dumb, which was considered the finest in the world at that time. The handicapped children didnt get shipped off, of course - who wanted THEM? Sorry, but this is a subject which makes my blood boil! OC

Paul!! or Parents were never asked permission. I remember talking to my Gran who was grandads second wife,and she said grandad was NEVER asked permission for his firstborn from his first marriage to be sent to Canada in 1909. It was only my nans intervention that stopped the second child born 1900 from being sent to Australia,and HE was very resentful that gran stopped him going cos he had been told it would be a GREAT adventure. My nan married grandad a widower in 1909 just 3 weeks after the girl aged 10 was sent to Canada. She always said had she known she would have stopped it. Was only glad she managed to stop the boy .born 1900, from going altho he was Very resentful. Mum her eldest child from the second marriage,always said that her elder half bro played her Mum up!!

Nudge for future ref Thanx :) K x

Paul Very few families were reunited, because both sides were told that the other had died. This was thought best, in order for the child to settle 'happily' into its new environment, thinking it was an orphan - and the parent/relation to stop making a nuisance of themselves, trying to get the child back. There are some heart-rending stories, of people in their 60s,70s and even 80s, discovering that their parent/s were not dead and neither were their siblings. One famous case which went to the European Court of Human Rights, concerned 7 children, all now in their 60s and 70s - six of them had found each other, but the youngest had been adopted in this country and the Social Services refused to divulge any details. They won their case, but sadly, the missing sibling had died as the result of .......childhood neglect.(Which is what all these children were supposed to be protected from) OC

Thank you George. Nudged just in case

Gotto keep this one Thank you Bren