home child

noun, Cdn [usu. in pl], one of a number of orphaned or destitute children sent from Britain to Canada from the mid-19th to early 20th c. to serve as farm or domestic help (COD)

“I don’t know if she was a home child or what, but anyway she was adopted by this older couple.”

“He was a home child.”

“A few years ago they had a special year on the home child, and there was a lot of research done on it. ‘The Bernardo children’ is a term that you see quite often associated ’cause he was one of the ones who organized finding families for people.”