Home Children

[J.J.]

Did you look into the marriage of a Matthew Welsh ( Christiana Price/ Ellen Taylor on page)1858 MarchQ. in Hunslet district (covers a portion of Leeds) There is a John born Hunslet 1862...just in case he (#1 husband Robert) was using a middle name? Was hoping to find some christenings online for actual couple but unsuccessful. This middle name thing happened with my family, and it makes searching a real pain...so thought I'd point out middle name use ( like Edward / Edwin ) in case you hadn't enough junk to sort through (Just kidding, hope this doesn't throw you off too much)

Found this on the tweedybird site:
WELCH Robert, age 13, 4 years in Canada, with Mr William H Graham of Stayner. ( that's in Simcoe)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tweetybirdgenealogy/jul1896.html
so by 1901 his contract would have been finished with Graham...They were indentured to age 18 if you can believe it. Just children and had to sign a contract of such a nature. I hope Graham was at least a decent man...  ...  but little wonder these young ones had little or no memory of parents when they were put under such stress to work at an age they should have been playing. At least some families were kind and sharing, but some BHC had it pretty tough, at a dollar a month pay.

Seems the John Welch (Clara Adams) were from Stratford, so probably the right fellow from the CEF signup...
( marriage of a son, b. Gravesend England 1902) http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maryc/perth1924.htm

p.s. re: Polar Bear's marriage find seems to rule them out...however...although he says he was born England  I see no marriage of a John Welch/Welsh (phonetic surname  search on) to an Emma Monroe on the freeBMD, and removing forenames, no Munroe/ Monroe/Welch /Welsh combinations either....
and daughter born St Geo.H. Sq. 1908 http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maryc/perth1927.htm

Go figure the birth of the son is registered in England and Ontario? Thomas Lewis Welch
Oct  26 1902 McKillop Township, Huron, Ontario, Canada [John Welch & Clara Adams] also reg DecQ. Gravesend
arghhh, how can we prove/disprove this to be John?

[Sal1525]

hello JJ,

Sterling work. Massive thankyou to you.
I have copied out your message. Don`t have much time to reply at the moment, I have got to shoot off to work-covering a shift- but I have a day off tomorrow and shall view the links that you have posted. So sorry.
Best Regards.

[polarbear]

This appears to be the family in the 1911 Census

http://automatedgenealogy.com/census11/SplitView.jsp?id=94333

It says Clara and the children are all b. Ontario but .... this appears to be the family of John coming to Canada in 1908 ...

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/passenger/001045-119.02-e.php?sisn_id_nbr=4989&page_sequence_nbr=1&interval=20&page_id_nbr=46289&&&&&&&&&PHPSESSID=34og6lu34ukp5d0e8bf3b1v4c6

There appear to be appropriate birth registrations for all the children in FreeBMD as far as I can tell.
The Ontario birth reg for Thomas Lewis Welch was a late one, in 1935. Young Charles should be the only child b. Ontario .... his registration gives the mother's maiden name as Clara Smith (As an aside, it was an uncle Charles Smith who signed the late registration papers for Thomas).  Very strange goings on in this family ....

Bouncing screen, will continue ....

[polarbear]

I think the West Kent Regiment and Artillery John Welch has on his CEF form were most likely in England. Googling West Kent Reg Canada only turns up hits related to the UK so far. Neither do I think Canada has an Artillery, although someone may correct me on either point. There was a Perth Regiment based in the area John was living in .... I believe it was a Militia unit. There is info about it on the internet.

Tough call, this one. The John with Clara and family has a birth date of 1878 in the 1911 Census which would make him a number of years older than 'your' John would be expected to be but we all know folks tell porkies occasionally.

On the other hand, your John was only 6 when he arrived in Canada and I wonder if he may have actually been properly adopted and took the name of the family he was placed with. There wouldn't be a formal paper trail but I wonder whether if you were to write to the Barnardos folks they might at least tell you who he was placed with? They might send you other info too ... you never know.

Continuing....

[J.J.]

Yes, polar bear, you could be right, that he may have been adopted out as he was so young...There really should have been more rules back then in favour of the children!  Thanks for sticking with the thread and trying to follow through with searches...Perhaps some descendants might see this all one day and fill in some blanks....J.J.

[polarbear]

Ancestry is going offline for maintenance shortly so I will have to leave things for now. Back tomorrow.

[Sal1525]

Hello JJ and Polar Bear
Thankyou for your posts. And all of your efforts, warmly appreciated.

My John, it is said, was Born 1886 Holloway London.  I found a CR/ to support this and his date of birth was mentioned in the letter from Barnados.
 So your John is a fair few years older. And he would then , perhaps , have grown up in England to work in the afore named Regiments. Also, to have married and had children in England. My John sailed in 1892 from Liverpool. What do you think?    I will follow it through further, tomorrow, even if that is only to eliminate him and Clara. I am open minded about them, as this family, mine, changed names, places of births etc..as well as using different aliases.

Barnados wants a lot of money to release further details. I have worked out that they or Elizabeth Merchant altered either the DOBs and places of births for the Welsh children.

I have chased up the links that PolarBear posted for the Passenger Lists, which I was unaware of and how to access them, so thankyou for that PB. Very interesting and shall be going through them more thoroughly for the other children. I wasn`t able to find the ship Carthagian_so perhaps this was a spelling mistake and the ship is the Corinthian.
I came across this site for Home Children and didn`t know if both of you were aware of it ;
http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html

Bouncing screen. Shall continue

[Sal1525]

Hi. contd..
Any idea how to change the title of my thread please, I have retyped in the title box, saved, pull up the screen and it goes back to the original title.?

We have the correct details for Elijah,.but require a death for him, but  is that correct that Canada don`t release the data until a certain time has passed, do I have that right?
When I viewed the Elgin Newspaper Archivesfor Elijah I also found an Earnest Pratt, wounded soldier and have filed that away as he could possibly be related to Edward , wife Valerie Pratt. Another site that I am working my way through.

I see on the Canadian Archives that when children arrived in Canada they were initially sent to distributing homes i.e Fairknowe in Brockville_maybe Keziah and Edward were placed there in the first instance--Would that depend upon wich Institution or Agency that sent them to Canada, as to where they were sent? And then sent on to different Farmers in the area, surely that would be Juveniles over 14 years-slave labour or what-a Dollar a month. Jeze poor kids. Were there other Distributing Homes?

The British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa are taking steps to create a database for Home Children Passenger Lists__should anyone need to know. I shall check this out further.

We have the right details for Edward. The chap that I had contact with, briefly for the Pratt info that I was able to glean from him, he said that there are 21 Arnolds in the Le High Cemetary, in the Cemetary Publications for Kitley but couldn`t tell me anymore and as I didn`t know if I had the right people at the time I didn`t chase that up, where would I get hold of such a list please?

I have since found another link, off a persons tree, that states a Keziah Randles buried in Glen Elbe Cemetary along with Edward Randles.  And that there is a Muriel and Thomas Edward Randles buried in the same cemetary-how do I chase that up in the Canadian Records?
Be back soon.

[Sal1525]

Hi, me again.
Picking up on what PB posted about the 1911c. In regards, possibly to the name of Smith;
Children that were named in Dr Bs letter but not admitted;
Faith Hope Charity Brown, alias Arnold. Mother Elizabeth Brown formerly Barnes. Faith as living in a home in Dorset???
James Welch, alias Smith.
Ellen Welch , alias McCarthy.
Obinia/Althenia Welch, alias Smith.

Keziah , Mother is down as Merchant formerly Barnes.
The childrens Mother is Elizabeth Merchant-maiden name.
I really do not know where Smith, McCarthy and Barnes come from.
What become of James, Peoney/Reaney or Susannah, haven`t been able to find out, but right now concentrating on the Canadian links.
Confusing isn`t it.  Be back on line tomorrow.