Canada Home Children Other Sources (National Institute)

Home Children Canada

 * From the early 1990s, a focal point for researching home children was Home Children Canada, under the direction of J.A. David and Kay Lorente. See Appendix J of Kohli’s The Golden Bridge for details on the work of this organization. A team at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa now handles most of the queries through:


 * Email:queries@bifhsgo.ca or P.O. Box 38026 Ottawa, ON K2C 3Y7 Canada

Soldiers of the First World War

 * Over 10,000 home children, almost one in seven, enlisted during 1914-1918. LAC now has a searchable database index to Soldiers of the First World War, giving access to online images of attestation papers, usually including date and place of birth, next of kin, and a reference for obtaining a copy of the complete surviving service file.

Marriage Registrations

 * Probably more than half the home children eventually married. Perhaps half of the total who came settled in Ontario, which has an 80-year embargo on marriage records still in the Office of the Registrar General. If that is the period of your interest, then you apply to the ORGO: noting their restrictions as to access. Marriage registrations from 1869 up to the 80-year period move to the custody of Archives of Ontario which has descriptive details and pathfinders on its website. There are films of the indexes and another series of films for the registration books.


 * For other provinces, similar privacy restrictions are in place. Some have online access to certain indexes or searchable databases for vital statistics through their provincial archives sites (for example British Columbia, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia). In other cases, you can consult the provincial agencies which govern vital statistics.

1940 National Registration

 * During the Second World War all adults over the age of 16 were required to complete a two-page questionnaire that asked for details such as date and place of birth, year of arrival in Canada if an immigrant, occupation, military service, etc. Statistics Canada holds these records which they will search for a fee, although some access restrictions apply. Find out more about requesting a search at the Library and Archives Canada.

Internet Sites and Sources
Several Internet resources offer information or the potential to ask advice. These should be regarded as leads only—it is essential to verify any information by going to more authoritative (original or contemporary) sources


 * Marjorie Kohli provides a website with articles and links to her research interest in the organizations that brought children and young women to Canada between 1833 and 1939: http://jubilation.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/ and go to “Child Migrants, Home Children.”
 * A RootsWeb site is the British Home Children name list boasting more than 30,000 entries. View this privately submitted name list.


 * RootsWeb also hosts the most widely used free subscription mailing list on the topic, often over 100 messages per month. Before subscribing to the list or posting a query, take time to search or browse the list archive which will tell you if anyone has discussed your potential ancestor and give you an idea of how to phrase a query.

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online course Canadian: Immigration Records offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about this course or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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