Genealogy Chat

Hello, can anyone help...What does 'Nurse Child' mean??

I've come across this term a few times now, on Census reports. Child appears with different surname to the rest of the family group and always babby, i.e. under 2.

Does it just mean a baby from outside of the family that the family has taken in?? The term is reminding me of 'Wet Nurse'???!!!! Am I way off?!

Thank you!

I think it means something like a foster child - one who hadn't been adopted by the family and was recognised as having a separate name, but still lived with them.

Here is another explanation.

"A nursechild was a standard term for an infant foster child. It is not necessarily the case that a nursechild was being nursed (breastfed) by a woman in the same household. The nursechild may have been fostered out for a number of reasons, such as the loss of one or both parents, or the parents being unable to look after the child due to reduced circumstances."

The were usually children who had ended up in the workhouse for whatever reason.

I have one baby in my family who was living with her Grandmother, so not a stray, much depends on what was said at the time to the enumerator

To everyone - thank you very much!!

My father was living with a registered 'nurse mother' until he was 5, in Ireland. This was from 1944 to 1950. The nuns would bring the children to the door, i have been told. The HSE in Ireland holds records for the children the family took in. My father was never legally adopted by them so i suppose he would have been a 'nurse child'. It would be like foster parents of today i imagine.

One family of mine had a nurse child. She was 9 years old, so extremely unlikely to be breastfed. Sometimes the family who took her in were paid a lump sum (like two shillings!) to take the child.

Margaret

A nursechild is cared for by someone else for money. A foster child. Definitely not one being nursed.

My grandmother was a nursechild age 18 months and a lodger with the same family the following census . I have her marriage cert naming a father and her birth cert having parents as married. However no sign of them married,dead,or in the area. This is my brickwall