It always amazes me how much you can learn about the world from exploring your family’s story.
My great uncle Frank was a British Home Child. I had never heard of such a thing before. Basically children were sent from England to the colonies … over a very long period of time … to become indentured servants. Not all were homeless. In fact most weren’t.
Frank came to Canada in 1879. He was just 9 years old. It seems he was one of the lucky ones in that somehow he kept in touch with his birth family in England.
He was not an orphan nor was he a street urchin but it seems his father had died and his mother was struggling to raise her sons without a husband. Her older sons and the youngest one all seem to have stayed in England. It seems only Frank was sent away.
There’s no one to ask if he ever talked about it … did he tell his wife and children … was it part of his story that he shared or was it a well kept secret.
He was one of the lucky ones. He did well in life. He married, had a family of his own, and had his own farm almost next door to the farm he was working on as a labourer at age 12 (1881 Canada Census). He was a respected member of this community as an adult.
He did go back to visit England as an adult on his own. I would have liked to have been on the ship with him to talk. Ask him questions about his life. Be his sounding board.
So far I havent found any cousins on this branch of my tree through my research or DNA matches. Alive today would be his grandchildren or, more likely, his great grandhildren. His wife was my bood relative not him; she was the eldest sibling of my grandfather. Her name was Jean Elizabeth Law. She was a teacher before she married Frank. They lived in Puslinch, Ontario.
I hope this post finds a relation… I’d love to hear from you.
Aud's Stuff 