Genealogy Chat

One of my ancestors was described as a nurse child on the 1881 census, with the same surname as the couple who lived next door, so I am assuming they were his real parents. Twenty years later he used the surname of the family he lived with, which means our family name is not the one we thought it was! Interestingly, the people I think were his real parents went on to have seven more children.

I found this on a website,I just typed Nurse Child into a search engine.I have found a few of these too in my searches Hope it helps you anna "You will find that probably the child was taken in to be wet nursed by the lady of the house because his mother could not feed him or needed to leave him to go out to work. He probably stayed on under that arrangement." I have found this too A 'nurse child' was usually an orphan raised by a family for a small payment from the Parish Relief fund (or maybe a private arrangement between families)? The child could have been placed with a family as a baby (but not officially adopted). Initially being (fed) nursed by the household mother Maybe the family went on to adopt him between the census years,this would explain his changing surname

in my Mansell family of 1881 census they have a nurse Child living with them. Charles Norris, age 5 Nurse child. in 1891 census i have listed Charles Mansell, age 15 g/son. could this be same person? i cant find any birth of a charles norris in the area, i wondered if he could be the illegitimate son of a family member? any ideas how i could find who he is.