Notes My great grandmother died in the child birth of twins in early 1892 and my great grandfather was unable to care for all of the 9 children. He was ill and great grandmother was the one that was the "bread winner" so he kept the eldest children to take care of the new twins and decided to send my grandfather George and another son Walter with the wife of the JP of Gosport to London and take the children to Barnardos. A third child would have been sent but he was not a well child so he stayed home. My granddad was taken to the Receiving House at Stepney Causeway in East London May 1, 1892 and was moved to Sheppard House on May 10th of that same year. In July of 1894 he was taken to Liverpool and sent to Canada. He was then taken to a place called Ravenscliffe which is near Huntsville Ontario and kept there until sent to Clinton Ontario with a man named Alexander Brown (1897) where he is listed as a servant on the 1901 Ontario census. According to his records from Barnardos he was very well behaved and Mr. Brown was very fond of him. He, also, received the Silver Medal from Barnardos for good behavior. From there he went to a man names Edward Jones who is listed as his employer also of Clinton Ontario in 1909. He met and married my grandmother Ellen Shiels in 1911 who was born in Ethel Ontario and they headed out west to British Columbia where they had 3 children Edith, Velma, and William (my dad). My grandfather was a logger and worked in a cereal factory. They decided to come back to Ontario and he found there were no jobs and ended up in Detroit, Michigan. They lived with my grandmothers brother until they could afford a place of their own. One of their children died of diptheria at age 10. The oldest daughter got married and moved with her husband to Grand Rapids Michigan and grandpa and grandma decided to follow. Their son (my dad) stayed in Detroit. My grandma died in 1951 and that's when grandpa decided to go to England to visit the siblings he had never met. He had written his father from his placement in Canada as a small child but my great grandfather had never responded. He died in 1912. Grandpa died in 1973 in his late 80's. Never once did he ever mention being a BHC. I found out after my father died in 2007 by comparing dates and places. All grandpa ever said was that he worked very hard on a farm for very little money and just room and board. He always believed in hard work. I took care of him when he took ill and he never once mentioned anything but sometimes from some of the stories my father told me of his childhood my grandfathers past spilled over into my dad's present.
Contributors Created : 2010-07-04 13:35:20 / From original database
Family History Researchers RootsChatters with family connections to George Alfred FORD: 
BLACKMAN, Phillip