Genealogy Speaker: Home Children of Britain
đź“… Ages: Adults
đź“Ś Wasaga Beach Public Library card required for registration.
Four million Canadians today can trace their roots back to a British Home Child.
This presentation explores who the Home Children were, the hardships of family life in Victorian and Edwardian Britain, and what these young emigrants experienced in rural Canada. It will also look at how children were treated, and how the World Wars shaped their lives.
Churches and workhouse unions, driven by a mix of social, economic, and charitable motives, took in British children who were destitute, living in poverty, or orphaned. These boys and girls became known as “Home Children” because many were moved from an emigration agency’s children’s home in Britain to its receiving home in Canada.
Between 1869 and 1939, more than 100,000 children under the age of eighteen were trained in agricultural skills (boys) or domestic trades (girls) to prepare them for emigration and adulthood in Canada. At the time, assisted juvenile emigration was promoted as a path to a healthier and more moral life in a rural Canadian setting.
About the speaker
Melissa J. Ellis is a professional genealogist with more than 30 years of experience in family history research and the owner of Archive Search. For over ten years, she volunteered at a Family History Centre, helping researchers use genealogical resources and tackle tough problems with creative, “outside the box” approaches. Melissa was recently the Canadian genealogical advisor on an episode of Brigham Young University’s web-based TV series The Generations Project.
Melissa holds a Certificate in Postgraduate Genealogical Studies from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and is currently pursuing a Postgraduate Diploma from the same university. In recent years, she served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Archives of Ontario, including a term as President, and helped oversee outreach programs, including a yearly tour of specialized archives and a successful architectural lecture series.