Dr. Barnardo Home records

[tony vines]

I've been asked whether it's possible to obtain records of children from Dr. Barnado homes in the UK who were sent to Canada in the early 20th century. Details of the specific child arriving in Canada have been found so it is the information of his time in a home in Stepney, London that is of interest.

I am aware that there is a service provided by the charity which can take several months, but does anyone else know of a quicker and possibly online way of accessing those records?

[Pam Downes]

Because of the extremely sensitive nature of the records I would have thought the answer is 'no' to anything being online.

Their website specifically mentions the Data Protection Act,

which requires us to disclose information only to the person about whom it was written

.
https://www.
barnardos.org.uk/products-2.pdf
See also the next paragraph about written consent which wouldn't be necessary if anything was available online.

Pam

[pat fowles]

From my experience it's impossible to get the UK records of Canadian Home Children. However, all the Canadian census info is online if you haven't tracked him in Canada. Also marriage info in Canada is online, which gives a lot more detail than a UK marriage cert. If you Google Home Children in Canada, it should bring the Library and Archive site up.

[tony vines]

Thanks Pat. I think that my contact has the Canadian end of things fairly well wrapped up but it was the early life in the care home and before that in the UK that was of interest.

cheers
Tony

[maesglas/ssclub]

Hi Tony, I tried to find my grandmothers first family who were all sent to Canada under the Scheme to get rid of the Children in homes, I managed to contact them and they replied that they had information which would me approx £100, its a long story but my brother did not want me to find out anything that might put my gran in a bad light, if you know what I mean.

I cant remember exactly how I went about it, but I do remember an organisation called " British Home Children" help me a lot, I will send another message with a link to them.

Robert

[maesglas/ssclub]

Hi Tony, The British Home Children have a site on Facebook.