Discovering who I am, debates around the use of archives and British Home Children

One of the homes run by the charity

Now it is a while since I featured the blog of the Together Trust which is the successor to the old Manchester and Salford Boys’ and Girls’ Refuges which began in 1870.

It started simply enough as a charity to give homeless children a bed for the night, but quickly developed into an organisation which campaigned for the rights of neglected and abused children setting up homes where they could receive care, attention and an education.

And for a brief forty years was also involved in the migration of children to Canada.

The Trust has an extensive archive which families of the children they helped can consult with the guidance of the archivist.

But anyone who has researched their family history will know this can raise all sorts of issues which can confront the researher with painful discoveries, but also especially for British Home Children give answers to their identity

So the last three blogs from their archivist are particularly interesting as they “explore the topic of ‘Accountability, Culture and Ethics’ within the Together Trust archive.”  

Emigration Book records

This was also the main theme surrounding this year’s Archives and Record’s Association (ARA) conference in Cardiff. The conference offered “a variety of speakers, discussing various subjects within the archive and records management context.”

One in particular which caught Liz’s attention was ‘Identity records and archival evidence: exploring the needs of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants’. 

“The talk by Michael Jones, Research Archivist and National Programme Manager of the Find & Connect Web Resource explored how archives can help people understand their identity. 

Some children were emigrated to Australia as part of child emigration programmes up until the late 1960s. 

For these individuals the importance of their own records is immeasurable. Although the Together Trust stopped emigrating children to Canada by the First World War, its own records are also hugely important to their ancestors. 

Photograph from the records, migrated boy in Canada

To understand one’s heritage and the context of why people in their own family were shipped across to a new country is vital for people to understand their own identity. 

The importance of our archives in helping this understanding cannot be underestimated. “

Now there is a lot more but rather than rehash the three excellent articles I shall as ever just point you to the link.*

For all of us involved in BHC they make fascinating reading and in turn pass you on to the conference itself and the site Find & Connect Australia.**







* The Archivist has returned to the building, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/the-archivist-has-returned-to-building.html#more

** Find & Connect Australia, http://www.findandconnect.gov.au/

Pictures; courtesy of the Together Trust, http://togethertrustarchive.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-together-trust.html