500,000 Photographs of Barnardos Children Up For Grabs

One of the oldest, most significant photographic collections in the shaping of Canada is up for grabs - those of the children who came to Canada as Dr Barnados Little Immigrants.  

Barnardo began photographing the children that came into his care at his first home in Stepney in 1875. 

Over half a million photographs are being digitized in Manchester. Once the digitization process has been completed, the original images are to be destroyed, all in the name of freeing up storage space.  

Not only were the British Home Children dispensable as people, now their images are also apparently dispensable.  Barnardos is willing to hand the collection of originals over to an interested organization, archive or group of individuals. Ideally, in Canada, this would be to Library and Archives Canada, however, we already know the state that organization is in and it is highly unlikely that they will do anything to pursue these precious memories of some of our early nation builders. The importance of these photographs to the national memory and social history of Canadacannot be underestimated.

If you know of an organization that would be willing to protect and preserve these images, you are asked to contact the head archivist at: martine.king@barnardos.org.uk

Rallying the Troops Into Action

For the past couple of years, I have read in awe the postings from the American genealogy community as they have rallied for a cause: The SSDI, Georgia Archives, library closures, indexing the 1940 census.

For the most part, Canadians are far more complacent. It's an innate part of our nature. We don't get riled about much - except maybe changing the hockey night anthem or threatening to eliminate the small size of our beloved Horton's coffee cups. We all love a good rant, but we rarely make them.

However, one thing that has certainly united the Canadian Genealogy community is the farce of what the rest of the world knows as Library and Archives Canada. Funding cuts, service cuts, the muzzling of employees. On June 1, LAC took possession of the 1921 Canadian Census. It was handed over in microform (microfilm) since the original records were destroyed a number of years ago, and all that remains are the microfilm images. LAC is responsible for digitizing (pretty simple given it is already in microform), indexing and making the census available online to the public. For free - just like the other census records. In the past two days, it has come to the attention of the genealogy world that the digitizing is complete. A geographical index is complete. The 1911 census was actually released at this stage and then only searchable by name once other, pay-per-view, companies had done the leg work in that area. For some unknown reason (nothing from LAC seems transparent or reasonable anymore), LAC has decided to withold the release, mostly because they don't see its release as a priority. The latest comment from a senior official is that the release is only important to "three old ladies in Kingston who want it for their genealogy" - no doubt an off-the-cuff remark that will come back to bite someone in the tuchus. However, that non-Canadian attitude has certainly sparked a fire in the belly of Canadian genealogists. Today they have united for a common cause. News has spread through Facebook groups, across Facebook pages, on Twitter, throughout Google+ Circles and via e-mail. Canadian genealogists are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. A frenzy of e-mails and letters have been sent to the Heritage Minister, the Honourable James Moore. Copies have been sent to local MPs, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and in one instance, to CBC asking for a public enquiry into the delayed release.

Now its time to rally the rest of the troops. Everyone with an interest in Canadian genealogy records, whether they themselves are Canadian, their ancestors were in Canada or those who are just passionate about access to records or freedom of information is being called into action to assist in getting LAC to release these records to the public and to do so expeditiously even if it means outsourcing to the genealogy community.

Here are the e-mail addresses for:

The Honourable James Moore (Minister of Heritage and Official Languages):
james.moore@parl.gc.ca

Local Members of Parliament:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/MembersOfParliament/MainMPsCompleteList.aspx?TimePeriod=Current&Language=E

Prime Minister Stephen Harper:
stephen.harper@parl.gc.ca

and yes, CBC's Fifth Estate:
fifth@cbc.ca

Carry On!