Now I have been away from BHC studies for a while.
The demands of other research, the book on the Great War, and two other pressing projects got in the way.
That said my great uncle Roger never really goes away. Every so often I will go back and look again for some of the missing bits of his life. Added to which my kids often ask about him and I regularly have conversations with my Canadian cousins whose grandma was his sister.
Marisa, Chris, Jac and I continue to surprise each other with new questions about him and occasionally one of us manages to find part of an answer.
All of which will be familiar to anyone engaged in family history but more so with BHC given that so much of the documentary evidence is at best vague, at worst non-existent and laden with tragic stories of abandonment and ill treatment.
Like many I fell eagerly on those sites dedicated to researching British Home Children, hoovering them up in the knowledge that here were others bound on the same search as me.
The sites offer advice, and news and above all a place which confirms that these young people have not been forgotten.
And over the last few years BHC has moved from diverse individuals looking for answers to a serious area of historical study. That in turn has led at times to disagreements as we grapple with differing interpretations of the motivations and experiences of those involved confirming that simple observation that history is messy and doesn’t always give up simple explanations.
All of which may be a preliminary to a book, but one that perhaps looks at the subject from this side of the Atlantic.
In the meantime I am in awe of the work done by Lori, Sandra, Judy Neville and others in both digging deep and offering help which leads me to the Middlemore Atlantic Society and that very personal aspect of our British Home Child.
He was migrated through Middlemore on behalf of the Derby Board of Guardians in 1914 aged 16.
Much older than most and with little in the way of supporting documentary evidence what we know of him is limited. Some research was undertaken for us in Birmingham by a woman who was nearly migrated to Australia in the 1960s and to her I will be eternally grateful.
Ironically we have more records after he went to Canada than before and so I look forward to the new BHC site Middlemore Atlantic Society which I joined recently. The answers may still be elusive but I feel a little closer to him.
After all this will be the 163rd story on British Home Children on the blog and I note that the first was posted on November 22 2011 just days after I began.*
Less a boats and more a recognition of the importance of our great uncle Roger.
Picture, a Middlemore document 1914, and the St John River, NB, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*British Home Children; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/British%20Home%20Children
 |
| An application for a Boy, 1914 |
That said my great uncle Roger never really goes away. Every so often I will go back and look again for some of the missing bits of his life. Added to which my kids often ask about him and I regularly have conversations with my Canadian cousins whose grandma was his sister.
Marisa, Chris, Jac and I continue to surprise each other with new questions about him and occasionally one of us manages to find part of an answer.
All of which will be familiar to anyone engaged in family history but more so with BHC given that so much of the documentary evidence is at best vague, at worst non-existent and laden with tragic stories of abandonment and ill treatment.
Like many I fell eagerly on those sites dedicated to researching British Home Children, hoovering them up in the knowledge that here were others bound on the same search as me.
The sites offer advice, and news and above all a place which confirms that these young people have not been forgotten.
And over the last few years BHC has moved from diverse individuals looking for answers to a serious area of historical study. That in turn has led at times to disagreements as we grapple with differing interpretations of the motivations and experiences of those involved confirming that simple observation that history is messy and doesn’t always give up simple explanations.
All of which may be a preliminary to a book, but one that perhaps looks at the subject from this side of the Atlantic.
In the meantime I am in awe of the work done by Lori, Sandra, Judy Neville and others in both digging deep and offering help which leads me to the Middlemore Atlantic Society and that very personal aspect of our British Home Child.
He was migrated through Middlemore on behalf of the Derby Board of Guardians in 1914 aged 16.
 |
| A place he knew ........ St John River, 2008 |
Ironically we have more records after he went to Canada than before and so I look forward to the new BHC site Middlemore Atlantic Society which I joined recently. The answers may still be elusive but I feel a little closer to him.
After all this will be the 163rd story on British Home Children on the blog and I note that the first was posted on November 22 2011 just days after I began.*
Less a boats and more a recognition of the importance of our great uncle Roger.
Picture, a Middlemore document 1914, and the St John River, NB, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson
*British Home Children; https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/British%20Home%20Children
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