Home children and Board of guardians

How to search for and access records for Home children and Boards of guardians.

On this page

• Before you start
• Search tips
• About the records
• Other places to look
• Access the records
• Related links

Before you start

Gather information such as:

• name(s)
• approximate year and place of birth
• approximate year of arrival
• place of residence in Canada
• religious denomination

Search tips

• Start with a broad search, then narrow your results as you go.
• Try searching with just the last name. If there are too many results, add extra keywords, such as a destination or sending organization.
• Try variations of the given name, an initial, or use the *wildcard, Ex: Lizzie might be used instead of Elizabeth, or McDon* for McDonnell/Mcdonald
• When searching by name of ship, enter the name without initials, for example TUNISIAN, not S.S. TUNISIAN.
• A code was assigned to each group of children traveling together. If you know a code, you can search for it in the code field.

If you are having trouble with your search, you can always Ask us a genealogy question.

About the records

Between 1869 and the late 1930s, over 100,000 children were sent to Canada from the British Isles through assisted immigration. Most of these immigrants are called “Home Children” because they went from an emigration agency's home for children in Britain to its Canadian receiving home. The children were mainly placed with families in rural Canada.

Some Middlemore children were brought to a farm school in British Columbia between 1936 and 1948 by the Fairbridge Society.

The records include the names of Home Children, as well as other names such as:

• some unaccompanied juvenile migrants who were not Home children
• some older boys who were recruited for farm training schemes
• some older children and young adults who were recruited by immigration agents in the U.K. for farming and domestic work in Canada
• some Armenian orphans who arrived with Home Children groups
• some young adults who had been in care as children and travelled as chaperones for the organizations

When passenger lists were not available or partially illegible, other Canadian immigration records were consulted to identify children or help decipher the names such as:

• Department of Agriculture (RG17): Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files (RG76 B1a)
• Juvenile Inspection Reports
• Manifest indexes

Archival records

The records in this collection were gathered from multiple sources at LAC and other institutions. If you want to see specific records, take note of the title, reference, and context of the record, then use that information to find the records in their home institutions.

Government records

Many of the records come from the Canadian Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files (RG76) and its predecessor the Canadian Department of Agriculture (RG17).

Private sources

Publications

Names were also pulled from published material.

• Annual Sessional Papers for the Immigration Branch were sometimes used to help identify particular parties of children when the passenger lists did not provide precise details.
• Canadian extracts from the Guild messenger
  by Dr Barnardo's Homes [1922-2010]
• Records of the Fegan Distributing Home in Toronto, Ontario, 1885-1931, 1937-1939,
  by Fegan Distributing Home (Toronto, Ont.), Douglas V Fry and J W C Feagan. (microfilm)
• Soeurs de la Charité, Rimouski, Quebec
  “Les orphelins d’Angleterre confiés aux Soeurs de la Charité à Rimouski” by Robert Claveau and Louiselle B.-Claveau. L’Estuaire Généalogique, volume 4 (1985), no. 14, pages 261-269.
• Ups and Downs Magazine (Dr Barnardo’s Homes), 1895-1949
  Microfilm copy
  Paper copy
  • If the record includes a microfilm reel number, it may be digitized online at The Dr. Barnardo Magazine Ups and Downs.
  • Some issues from 1895 to 1903 are digitized on Canadiana. Enter Ups and Downs in the search box.

Uncatalogued manuscript publications

You will need to contact the Genealogy team to access these documents:

• A list of Home Children from Isle of Man whose records are at the Manx Museum, Isle of Man, United Kingdom.
• A list of Roman Catholic Home Children (Child Migrants) whose Records are at the Father Hudson Society Archives, Coleshill, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
• Alphabetical Lists of Boy Emigrants to Canada, 1886 to 1915 inclusive, Gibb Home, Sherbrooke, Quebec.
• Alphabetical Lists of Boy Emigrants to Canada, 1920 to 1935 inclusive, Gibb Home, Sherbrooke, Quebec.
• Children emigrated to Canada by Catholic Emigration Association whose details are recorded in various registers/books, Nugent Care Society.
• Emigration of poor Catholic children from the Westminster Diocese to Canada, 1874-1928.
• List of Children sent by Nugent Care and other Catholic Liverpool Agencies.
• List of Children Taken into care by the West Derby Union and sent to Canada by Father Berry's Home.
• List of children transcribed from ledgers at the National Children’s Home in Hamilton.
• List of Children under 18 years old on the Books of Father Berry's Home in Canada on the 31st December 1906.
• List of Children under 18 years old on the Books of Father Berry's Home in Canada, 1884-1916.
• Maria Rye Index

Other places to look

We also have these records that reference Home Children

Juvenile Inspection Reports (RG76 C4c)

Immigration officials created inspection report cards as they carried out regular inspections of children brought to Canada by various organizations. These records date from 1920 to 1932; however, there are a few from 1911 to 1917 and after 1932. There is usually one page per child, showing these details:

• name
• age or date of birth
• year of arrival
• name of ship
• sending organization
• names and addresses of employers and wages paid
• inspector’s comments, for example "good progress and character"
• final comments, for example "completed, gone west."

This series also includes inspection cards for some European children brought to Canada by:

• the Armenian Relief Association of Canada (1923-1932)
• the Canadian Jewish War Orphans Committee (1920-1921)

The records are arranged in alphabetical order by the person’s name. They are only available on microfilm because the original records have not survived. The quality of some of the microfilm images is poor.

The microfilm reels are digitized on our partner website Héritage. See Juvenile Inspection Reports for the list of contents for each microfilm reel and links to those digitized microfilm.

Immigration Branch: Headquarters central registry files (RG76 B)

There are files in RG76 with documents to and from organizations involved in juvenile immigration. The files usually contain annual reports, correspondence and information booklets. If a file has the word "lists" in the title, it means it includes the names of children.

The files cover the years from 1892 to mid 1940s.

To search for files:

• Go to Advanced Collection search.
• In All these words, enter "RG76" and a keyword. Examples of keywords:
  • RG76 Middlemore
  • RG76 Church of England
  • RG76 Barnardo
  • RG76 Marchmont
  • RG76 Fegan
  • RG76 Rye
  • RG76 Father Hudson

• Some Middlemore children were brought to a farm school in British Columbia between 1936 and 1948 by the Fairbridge Society. Try "Fairbridge" as the keyword, then narrow your results by date.

If you find a file of interest to you, make a note of the volume, file and microfilm number. Then go to our partner website Héritage to view the digitized microfilm.

• Scroll down that page to find the microfilm you want to see and click to open it.
• Most of the images show the volume and file numbers at the bottom or side of the page.
• Skip ahead through the images to find the volume and file number you want.
• The documents in each file are generally arranged in date order.

Published sources

Books about Home Children and the sending organizations can help you better understand the experiences of a Home Child ancestor. Some books include information about specific children. Use our Aurora catalogue to search for books. Try keywords like "home children," or "home child," plus:

• genealogy
• history
• biography
• an organization
• name of a receiving home

We've prepared a list of books about Home Children from our Aurora catalogue to give you an idea of the types of books you might find. Each title in this list includes the author and the LAC call number.

• Click on a title in the list to open the full catalogue entry. If you scroll down, you'll see a list of other libraries that hold copies. You can also check your local library’s online catalogue.
• If the call number includes the word genealogy, the book is in the Genealogy Services room at our Ottawa location.
  • Example of a call number: Genealogy Ref. - CS88 A2 A38 2003

Home Children Research Guide

Our Genealogy Services has prepared an extensive Home Children research guide to help with your research. It includes:

• background information on the juvenile emigration movement
• information about records held at LAC and at other institutions in Canada and the U.K.
• information and resources for the different sending organizations and receiving homes
• links to Home Children websites

You can request a copy of our Home Children Research Guide (PDF format) by using our Ask genealogy a question form.

Other institutions

• Passenger lists for ships leaving ports in the United Kingdom are in the Board of Trade series at the National Archives (United Kingdom)
• Some groups of children arrived at American ports. Their names are recorded on American passenger lists held at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

Access the records

The records in this collection are a mix of digitized images available directly in Collection Search, microfilmed images available on our partner site, Héritage, and records that have not been digitized.

We do not provide copies of records that are already digitized on our website or on our partner site Héritage.

Records that are not digitized

Entries with References from the Department of Agriculture (RG17), microfilm reels with “A” Prefixes and Published Material with CS88 Call Numbers are not digitized. You will need to see them in person.

If you cannot visit us in person, you may want to order copies or hire a researcher.

If you order a copy, be sure to include the child's name and the complete reference as it appears in the database.

Related links

• Discovering my grandfather, Robert Roy Greenhorn, a “Home Child” (Part 1)

LAC gratefully acknowledges the contribution and partnership of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa and its members for the ongoing project to index Home Children records.