Orphans, Guardianships and the Orphan Trains

Children who lost a parent often left a trail of court, orphanage and placement records. How to find guardianships, apprenticeships, orphanage records and orphan train placements.

3 min read

In the days of high mortality, many children lost a parent, and a large number lost both. What happened to them depended on their family, their property and their community: some were raised by relatives, some had court-appointed guardians, some were apprenticed, and some went to orphanages or were sent west on the orphan trains. Each path left records.

What "orphan" meant

In older legal records, an "orphan" was usually a child whose father had died, even if the mother was living. Because property passed through fathers and married women had limited legal rights, a fatherless child with any inheritance needed a guardian. So a guardianship record doesn't necessarily mean the mother was dead.

Guardianship records

Courts that handled estates (called probate, orphans', surrogate's or county courts, depending on the state) appointed guardians to manage a minor's property. Guardianship records can include:

• The appointment of the guardian, often a relative, naming the child and the deceased parent
• The child's own choice of guardian: children over 14 could often choose their guardian in court, which gives an approximate age
• The guardian's bond, with sureties (often relatives)
• Annual accounts listing money spent on the child's schooling, clothing and board
• A final settlement when the child came of age, which can pin down a birth year

Look in court order books, minute books and probate files of the county where the parent died. See Wills and Probate.

Apprenticeship and indenture

Courts and overseers of the poor often "bound out" poor or orphaned children as apprentices, until age 21 for boys and 18 or 21 for girls. The indenture names the child, often their age, the master, and the trade to be learned. Apprenticeship records are found in court records, overseers of the poor records and county records, and they're a common source for children of poor families who left few other traces.

Orphanages and children's homes

From the 1800s onward, churches, fraternal organizations, cities and states ran orphanages and children's homes. Many children in them had a living parent who couldn't support them. Records may include admission registers with parents' names, the reason for admission and the child's later placement.

• Census: look for children listed in institutions, which are enumerated like households.
• Records: may be held by the successor organization, a church archive, a state archive, or a university. Many are restricted for privacy, but descendants can often get access.

The orphan trains

Between 1854 and 1929, charitable organizations sent an estimated 200,000 or more children from crowded Eastern cities, especially New York, to live with families in the Midwest, South and West. The best known were the Children's Aid Society, founded by Charles Loring Brace, and the New York Foundling Hospital. Many of the children weren't orphans, but children of poor families.

To research an orphan train rider:

• Family stories and local newspapers, which often announced when a train was coming and listed children placed
• The agencies' records, which may be available to the child's descendants on request
• The National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas, a museum and research center that helps families trace riders
• Census records listing the child as "adopted," "ward," "boarder" or "servant" in the placement family
• DNA testing, which can identify the biological family of a child whose origins were never recorded. See Finding Birth Family.

Children raised by relatives

Most orphaned children were simply taken in by family: grandparents, aunts and uncles, older siblings. In the census, look for children with different surnames in relatives' households, listed as grandchild, nephew, niece or with no relationship at all (before 1880). See Where Did My Ancestor Go?