Genealogy Forum UK

Much has been written and said about the alleged aboriginal stolen generations in Australia. (Something I don't think ever occured and there has been zero evidence to show it did.)

What few people know about are the 150,000 British children shipped out to Australia during WW2.

Most were from poor families and many were mistreated by those who were supposed to provide safety and shelter.

Many were falsely told their parents were dead and they were prevented from contacting relatives in the UK.

Government agencies in Australia and the UK kept the size and severity of the problem quiet until a Nottingham social worker, Margaret Humphries, uncovered the truth in the mid 1980's.

Gordon Brown apologised to the UK stolen generation in February 2010.

This film is about how Margaret started helping people trace their families and subsequently uncovered the shamefull truth of what was done to these children whose only crime was to be poor.

http://orangesandsunshine.com.au/

How sad - makes me cry to think of those poor kids taken away from their families. Hopefully some of them had a better life than they would have done here. So, Gordon aplogised did he

Maybe not so much has been written down under, but here it's been a festering sore for years, regularly popping it's head up when a radio or TV researcher or writer wants to cover the subject. Funnily enough I haven't seen much about the stolen Aborigine children here though.

The same happened when Denmark tried to give children from Greenland a "better" life. They weren't all orphans, and only about half of them are alive today, the rest have mostly committed suicide or drunk themselves to death. They were forced to speak danish, and couldn't contact their families. The idea was to send them back better educated than they otherwise would have been! Some of the survivors have only recently been reunited with their familes.

Trying to westernise the Greenland community has done more harm than good. They lived a sustainable if primitive life, and then europeans came and "modernised" them, which has lead to a lot of drink problems, incest etc etc. One of my collegues worked in Greenland for six months (they're always short of medical personal there), patients disappeared from the wards only to turn up a few hours later drunk - this happened regularly.
The communities that seem to have it best are the ones off the beaten track where people live more traditionally.

White Australians did terrible thing to the natives and they deserved an apology.

Trouble is they re-wrote the history books and concentrated on the mythical stolen generation.

My daughter got a fail on a school assignment because she dared question if an aboriginal stolen generation ever existed.

I went to the school and challenged the teacher to show me any evidence of any government body seperating children from their families based on ethinicity alone.

Zero, zilch.

She got an A+ after the teacher realised how much work she did to try and find any supporting data.

Australian students should be taught about the real crimes we commited against the aborigines.

MarkCDodd wrote:White Australians did terrible thing to the natives and they deserved an apology.

Trouble is they re-wrote the history books and concentrated on the mythical stolen generation.

My daughter got a fail on a school assignment because she dared question if an aboriginal stolen generation ever existed.

I went to the school and challenged the teacher to show me any evidence of any government body seperating children from their families based on ethinicity alone.

Zero, zilch.

She got an A+ after the teacher realised how much work she did to try and find any supporting data.

Australian students should be taught about the real crimes we commited against the aborigines.

Absolutely Mark - Good for you

My Husband has mentioned some of his family that were shipped over to Australia and when I was researching his family, I think I found them in his Holder line, living around the Reading area, I think it was. I really must pick the thread back up and ask my M-I-L about it, she's 91 now but mostly has a good recall of facts, although, unfortunately rubbish at identifying photos of people.

It would be interesting to find out if we have living relatives over in Oz.

Appaently the records are fairly detailed. They were just hidden away for fourty years.