The National Archives of Canada holds passenger lists from 1865 to 1935 (Record Group 76, C). These lists consitute the official record of immigration to Canada in that period. Most are arranged by date and port of arrival. Click here to read more about passenger lists.

In cases where passenger lists are not available or not legible, other sources have been consulted, as described below in the section on How to interpret your results.

To read more about Home Children, you may wish to visit the Young Immigrants to Canada web site. There you will find information about various homes and organizations, reunions, titles of books on the subject and some lists of children's names.

You can narrow your search by including additional search terms, but keep in mind that if your request is too specific you may rule out possibilities of which you are unaware. For example, the child may have been sent by a different organization than the one you believe, or he/she may have arrived in a different year.

If you are certain of the Year of Arrival, enter that year in the search field. If you believe it was a certain time period, for example, during the 1890s, you can enter 189$ to search all entries for that decade.

If you know the name of the Ship on which the child arrived, enter the ship's name in the search field.

You can enter optional terms in the Keyword field, such as destination or sending organization, for example Brockville or Middlemore. When entering the name of an organization or Home, add a wildcard at the end to allow for possessive forms of the word.

For example:

For Barnardo Homes, enter Barnardo$ to search for entries that include the terms Barnardo and Barnardo's.

Your search results will be posted as a results summary list from which you will be able to obtain more detailed descriptions.

Results Summary List

The results summary list, sorted by column, contains information that will allow you to rapidly assess how relevant the documents are that you have found. Each page of the list provides 20 references, which is a default value that you can change. You can export the results to a diskette or to your own computer.

The description includes the following identifying details: surname, given name, age, sex, ship, year of arrival.

From that list, select the entries of interest to you. The first column is linked to the detailed description (see below). Clicking on the icon will bring you to the detailed description.

Detailed Description

From the results summary list, you can consult one detailed description at a time. Each detailed description includes all or some of the sections described below.

Important note: Due to the poor legibility of many of the passenger lists, some information in this database may be incorrect and/or incomplete.

Name:

The child's name as it was recorded on the passenger list. In some cases, abbreviations have been expanded by the indexer, for example, Wm. to William.

Age:

The child's age at the time of arrival.

Sex:

Male or female.

Microfilm reel:

Microfilm reel on which the reference appears.

Ship:

The name of the ship on which the child arrived. Note that SS is the abbreviation for steamship, e.g. SS SIBERIAN.

Port of departure:

Port from which the ship sailed.

Departure date:

Date on which the ship sailed.

Port of arrival:

Port in Canada in which the ship landed. Note that some ships arrived at American ports and the children travelled from there to their Canadian destination by train.

Arrival date:

Date on which the ship landed.

Party:

Name of the organization or home which sent the child or with whom he or she travelled. Some smaller homes sent children with groups from larger organizations.

Destination:

Destination of that group of children, for example Brockville, where the Quarrier home was located. The passenger lists did not record each child's final destination, which was determined by the distribution home after their arrival.

Comments:

Notes recorded on the original passenger list or by the indexer regarding the entry. For example "Children listed as from Birmingham, England."

Note:

The indexers have noted when details relevant to a particular child were illegible or difficult to decipher, for example name or age. The indexers leave the field blank or interpret it to the best of their ability.

The reference for National Archives of Canada passenger lists is Record Group (RG) 76, C 1.

In cases where a passenger list was not available or the passenger list was partly or completely illegible, the indexer may have retrieved the information from alternate sources, such as the following:

Manifest indexes (RG 76, C 2):

Transcripts created by the former Immigration Branch in which the names on each passenger list were grouped alphabetically for that ship. They rarely contain more than the name and age of each passenger. These lists are arranged by date of arrival, regardless of port. They cover the years 1906 to 1920 and appear on microfilm reels T-521 to T-529, T-5520 to T-5569, T-16185 to T-16191.

Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files (RG 76, B 1 a):

These files include correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. They include annual reports, information booklets and some lists of the names of children sent to Canada. They cover the years 1892 to approximately 1946 and appear on microfilm reels: C-4655 to C-4800
C-7298 to C-7869
C-10233 to C-10327
C-10397 to C-10448
C-10577 to C-10687

To obtain a volume and file number for those references, please consult our database for Government of Canada Files. Select Record Group 76 (Immigration) and use the name of the sending organization as a keyword, for example Barnardo$.

Department of Agriculture, Central Registry Files (RG 17):

Prior to 1892, the Immigration Branch was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. The Central Registry files include some correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. The records rarely contain names of children. To obtain a volume and file (docket) number, please consult our database for Government of Canada Files. Select Record Group 17 (Agriculture) and use the name of the sending organization as a keyword, for example Barnardo$. Note that these records are not available on microfilm.

U.S. passenger lists:

Some children arrived at American ports and are recorded on passenger lists not held by the National Archives of Canada. In those cases, the indexers have consulted the American passenger lists held by the National Archives in Washington, D.C., which are available on microfilm through the LDS Family History Library™. They are identified in the index with LDS reel numbers.

Records in the custody of other institutions:

When a reference is provided to documents held by another institution, such as the Colonel Lawrie's Papers at the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, you must contact the specified office for information about those records.