Genealogy Chat

has anyone on this site any personal experience of a member of family being evacuated and never returned to their family? does anyone have any ideas on sites in which i can visit to find other people who were 'forgotten' and possibly lost in the mayhem of WW11. my mother and (i have just found out) my mother in law were two such children,i also know a lady in the next town was also evacuated and never returned to her parents. all born england and ending up in scotland...

Lots ended up in USA/Canada .. and Australia I think. Don't know of any sites online though. Have you tried googling ? Elaine ;-)

great....and we end up in the coldest place...lol thanx for your reply.i have tried to find any sites but nothing yet,seems most children made it back home but the fact remains these children were 'left' and ijust wondered if there are more families out there missing children. maybe i should start my own ? funny things happened in those days.!!

Book to read on this subject is Empty Cradles, it may give an insight on missing children right in to the 1960's

I am a nurse and a few years ago I worked in a hospital for the mentally handicaped now thankfully closed. I can remember an old lady with mild learning disabilities telling me she had been evacuated from London. When she returned after the war no-one turned up at the station to meet her and she was sent to this hospital where she spent the rest of her life - a very sad story. I think quite a few children espescially those with disabilities weren't claimed. Her sister who was not disabled was sent to an orphanage. I have no idea how you trace these children. My mother was a teacher and evacuated with a group of secondary school children from the slums of Bristol. After the war several children were offered jobs on the local farms which were very short of manpower or chose to marry the local boys or girls. If you know where they were evacuated it might be worth checking if they stayed in the area.

thanx..i have been off searching for possible sites but no luck so far..some war memories for children of that time were horrendous.!! maybe i should leave my p.c running and hope my son reads these stories, we really dont know how lucky we are now..

Vicki There's also the story of the Evacuee ship that was torpedoed by the Germans in WW2 while en route to Canada. Lots of children lost their lives in that one. I can't remember the name of the ship off-hand. Joy

Hi Vicki My Grandpa's sister had an evacuee living with them in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire. On 10th October 1940 a bomb was dropped that was targetted at the factory next door to where they lived, unfortunately it missed the factory and hit their house. Both my Grandpa's sister and the evacuee were killed. She was a little girl aged 10, name of Constance Ellen Baker and was from 133 Wick Road, Hackney, the daughter of Walter Ernest and Doris Agnes Baker. I got this info from the Common Wealth Graves Commission site, they have civilian war deaths on there too. So, some evacuees might have been killed, like this poor girl. Lisa xx

I'm not at my sharpest today, so forgive me if I sound a bit thick. Are you saying that both your mother and your mother-in-law were child evacuees who never returned to their families and you want to know why, you want to know their origins? Jay

Of the mass evacuation programme of the first 4 days of September 1939 only 9 children were never claimed/abandoned by their parents...... Have you looked at the BBC website? If not there are many tales written by the evacuees . Try here: www*bbc*co*uk/dna/ww2/ Much happiness Debi replace* with a dot

There were many children evacuated during the second W War that did not return to their parents for differing reasons. Some of the reasons were: Parents had been killed in air raids. At the end of the war many children had only experienced their 'foster parents' as parents for the duration of the war 1939 until 1945 and sometimes for a couple of years afterwards and never wanted to return home as they did not know their parents, especially if they had been evacuated at age 4. Sometimes parents did not want the children back again. Many children sadly died whilst evacuees. Aproximately 83 children sailed to Canada on the 'Benares 'which was torpedoed and only about 23 children survived. Many children got into trouble with the law and may have been sent to 'Reform School'. Children were first evacuated from London in 1939 but were soon home again as this was a 'phoney war' period re the civilian population. They were evacuated in earnest from London in 1940 when the Blitz began. As the blitz took hold of various big cities like Liverpool, Southampton, Coventry, Manchester etc the children and their schools were systematically evacuated all over the country with Devon and Cornwall and Wales receiving most evacuees from London and the Southern areas. Some cities had no evacuation plans and were known as 'Neutral Zones'. These places included cities likePlymouth, Bristol and Liverpool so when these areas were bombed it was total chaos and whole schools were evacuated from these areas. These are just a few reasons, but I am sure there are more. Try the 'Evacuees Reunion' website for further information. Janet