My mother was a Barnardo's Baby

I had no details of my late mother`s family other than the names of her parents on her marriage certificate which my parents had shown me in the 1960`s prior to my own marriage. Before then I had believed her mother to have been Grandma Adams but the marriage certificate showed different surnames for her father and mother. It was then I was told that Grandma Adams had been her foster mother until she was about 7 when she was sent back to Barnardo's . It was never spoken about again although we continued to visit Grandma Adams and her two sons uncle Charles and Uncle Percy.

Some years after my mum`s death I applied to Barnardo's for her admission details and after receiving these plus 3 beautiful photographs of my mum my search for her ancestors began. It has been a fascinating journey finally leading me to make personal contact with my mother`s birth family through the children of her half brothers and sisters. They in turn have given me photos of my mum`s birth mother and and all 7 other half brothers and sisters. There was nothing in the Barnardo's records to help me trace mum`s birth father other than he had been a soldier she had been introduced to by `a friend`!!

 

My Dad was a Barnardo's baby too, although he was apparently just fostered out through them. When I wrote to them all I got was a short precis about my grandmother, stating that her parents had been imprisoned for neglect (it must have been a very short stay because they had many children afterwards) and she and her then siblings were sent to a workhouse. When she was 16 she was put out to work; by the time she was 17 my Dad was born. Father unknown on the birth registration and I have been looking for many years to find out who he was. They told me where he was fostered out, so I was able to find him on the 1911 census.

 

Thanks for your interesting reply. I was very fortunate to receive very detailed records from Barnardo's. Mum was placed in Barnardo's aged 6 months and I have a photo of her taken at her admission. There were also details of her mother, married with 3 children, husband abroad in the army, grandparents and uncles and aunts so it was relatively easy to trace them. Interestingly her mother`s husband is named as Father on mum`s marriage certificate. It was HIS employer who appears to have taken pity on the family and arranged for mum to go into care, sending a yearly donation and asking for `details of the child`. I find it hard to imagine how my mum felt when at 7 years of age she was taken away from a very loving family back into care until she was 16 and entered domestic employment. The bond with her foster family survived the separation as she maintained/renewed contact with them for the rest of her life and I was fortunate to have them as my grandparents and uncles.

 

I have a very old picture of my Dad; he is in a pram of sorts and looks to be under a year of age. I do not know its source however; it may have been taken by the Barnardo people when he went there but I do not know how my Dad got it. I also do not know where he got the two other pictures of him while he was still in England; one in what I assume to be some sort of naval uniform when he would have been in training and the other a few years later (that is the one in my avatar) It is possible that his mother had them and gave them to him when he emigrated to Canada to join her.