Finding St. Louis Orphanages in the 1950 Census

Did you know the term "orphan" refers to both full orphans and half-orphans? A full orphan means both parents have died or deserted the child. A half-orphan refers to children with one parent still living. Every year, our Ask Louie genealogy advice service receives many questions on researching orphaned ancestors, and this year is no different. With the release of the 1950 U.S. census, we've been busy updating St. Louis orphanage information on our website.  If you are researching an ancestor who was orphaned or half-orphaned in St. Louis and are a member of StLGS, you can access a great deal of information about St. Louis orphans and orphanages on our website.

Orphans with Parents: Very Common in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Southside of Chicago, September 1897––Asleep in the street in a neighborhood teeming with saloons, gambling, and prostitution, a young boy named Andrew was “rescued” by one of the newly-minted social reformers on the southside and turned over to the juvenile court system. Although Andrew’s parents were alive and well, they were saloon keepers and not mindful of where their son was spending time; nor did they seem to have any clear plans for his education or future. Andrew was sent to a boys’ school, where he was deemed an orphan. Six months later, the now ten-year-old was handed over, via a train ride to rural South Dakota, to a Russian-German immigrant farmer and his family, with whom he spent the next decade and a half of his life. Andrew's story, and that of many others in our families was all too common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Read on for more information.

Updates to Orphanage Care in St. Louis: St. Bridget's Half-Orphan Asylum for Girls

(Thanks to StLGS treasurer, Viki Fagyal, for contributing this week's blog post.) 

Questions about orphans and orphanage care in St. Louis are among the most frequent inquiries we get from genealogy researchers at St. Louis Genealogical Society. If you are a member of the society, we have quite a bit of information to help you on this topic on our website. Log into the site and go to the orphanage home page to start learning about the various institutions in St. Louis. The orphanage page will also give you basic information on orphan trains and available records in St. Louis.

St. Bridget's Half Orphan Asylum for Girls

St. Bridget’s Half-Orphan Asylum for Girls was established in 1858 by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet and was located on Lucas Avenue and Beaumont Street. The home served female half-orphans from five to twelve years old, who were placed by the surviving parent. Part of the founding mission of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet was St. Joseph Institute for the Deaf in St. Louis. This put the order in the unique position of being able to serve deaf orphans and half-orphans.

Of the ninety-nine white females between the ages of four and twenty-one listed in the 1870 census, twenty-five of the girls showed handicapping conditions: four were marked "idiotic," fifteen marked "deaf and dumb," one marked "deaf, dumb, and blind," two marked "blind," and three marked "mute." Of the ninety-four white females between the ages of ten months and nineteen years listed in the 1880 census, nine of the girls showed handicapping conditions: six were marked "deaf and dumb," two marked "idiotic," and one marked "disabled." This is remarkable because St. Bridget’s served a population not seen in the other orphanages.

The Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet gave permission for the St. Louis Genealogical Society to place a list on our website of deaf children cared for and taught at St. Bridget’s. The data includes their names, birth places, parents’ names, when they left the asylum, and sometimes some additional information. This list can now be found at the top right of the Orphanages page on our website in the box labeled "More Orphanage Information." You can also go directly to it here, once you are logged into the site.

There is little history available for St. Bridget’s Half Orphan Asylum for Girls. In 1866 it was placed under the control of the Board of Managers of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylums of St. Louis. The archives of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet deals only with the sisters; they do not have student records. The St. Louis Archdiocesan Archives does not have records for St. Bridget’s Half Orphan Asylum for Girls either.

More on St. Louis Orphanages

The StLGS website includes a bibliography of orphanage histories and articles, a finding aid for locating orphanages in the 1850 through 1940 censuses, a timeline of the locations for each orphanage through all their moves, and an Index to the Journal of Commitments for the House of Refuge.

The most comprehensive resource for St. Louis orphanages is Researching Orphans and Orphanage Care in St. Louis, written by Viki Fagyal ($13 members/$15 nonmembers), and available in our society's store. Don't forget to log in and get your member coupon code for the lower price.

Orphanages, Newspapers, and Congregations: Some Updates

As we mentioned to you a few weeks ago, we are in the process of reviewing many outdated blog posts in preparation for moving to our new website. Although many of the oldest posts were short and restricted to events occurring at specific times and places, some are still quite relevant, and we want to share some of those this week.

Orphans in the Family?

Sometimes, because we are so used to the way we do things, we forget it wasn’t always that way. We assume that if an ancestor changed their name, they went to court to do so because that’s what most people do now. We also assume that if a child was adopted, some well-defined legal pathways were followed––again, because that’s what is expected today. However, the reality is that names were changed all the time without anyone taking any legal steps, and children were handed over to friends, clergy, family members, and other willing takers, quite often with no paper trail. Orphanages held thousands of children who still had one or more living parent, and children struggling to survive in poverty were often literally snatched off the streets and placed in institutions, sometimes without parental consent.

Looking for Hard-to-Find Genealogy Records in St. Louis?

So many of us have ancestors who wound up in orphanage care or migrated, at least in part, via the railroads. We all have searched cemeteries, and perhaps many of us have attempted to find obscure records in library collections. What if we could spend several hours taught by local experts in the safety and comfort of our homes, learning more about what genealogy records might be available? Wouldn't that be just perfect? Well, the opportunity is here! 

House Research and Orphanage History

Got the June meeting on your calendar? The StLGS monthly meeting for June is this coming Saturday, the 9th, when experienced genealogist, LaDonna Garner, will present "Don't Forget Their House! Researching the Homes of our Ancestors." This meeting, originally scheduled for August but switched due to a conflict, will help you to determine how to go about pursuing the history of your ancestral homes. Often neglected in research, those houses are part of your family history and may help flesh out the stories of the people who lived in them.

The monthly meeting is at St. Louis County Library Headquarters, 1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard, in the auditorium. The meeting is free and open to all; no pre-registration is necessary. Doors open at 9:30 a.m. and the meeting starts promptly at 10 a.m. See you there!

(The meeting originally scheduled for June, "Non-Genealogical Websites for Genealogists," by Bob Goode, will now be the August meeting, on Saturday the 11th.)

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 Questions about orphans and orphan care in St. Louis?

Take a look at our newest publication, available for sale now in the StLGS store. You can find it at http://store.stlgs.org/researching-orphans-and-orphanage-care-in-st-louis

For more on St. Louis orphanages, be sure you also check out the section on our website: https://stlgs.org/research-2/institutions/orphanages

Local Genealogy News

Our friends at the St. Clair County [Illinois] Genealogical Society have given their website a sleek makeover. If you had pages bookmarked on the old site, you might want to visit the new site and re-bookmark those pages, as the old links may not work. In addition, you may need to opt in again for electronic messages from the society and to receive notices for their publications. The SCCGS has also been adding indexes and records to their site, so if you have ancestors from that part of Illinois, be sure to check them out. The website address is https://stclair-ilgs.org/.

Many St. Louisans are eagerly awaiting the reopening of the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum, scheduled for Saturday, 3 November. In early August, the first artifact was installed in the refurbished main gallery, the bell from the deck of the USS St. Louis, a light cruiser that protected ships transporting American soldiers to Europe during World War I. Since then, crews have been painting, cleaning, and gathering up items to move into place to get ready for the grand reopening.

Exhibits will feature many items that reflect the lives of St. Louis soldiers throughout history. The museum is keeping up with the public via Facebook and Twitter. You can see lots more of the progress on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SoldiersStLouis/. For those of you on Twitter, you can find the museum at https://twitter.com/SoldiersStLouis or search for them with the handle of @SoldiersStLouis.

Interested in St. Louis orphanages? Head over to the Cliff Cave Branch of the St. Louis County Library on Friday, 21 September at 10 a.m. to hear Viki Fagyal, StLGS treasurer and author of Researching Orphans and Orphanage Care in St. Louis, discuss "St. Louis Orphanages." The talk is free and open to all. No pre-registration required. You can purchase a copy of Viki's book at our online store. Click here to go to the page, but don't forget to get your member code for your discount, if you are an StLGS member.

And, finally, mark your calendar for Saturday, 29 September, and plan to visit St. Louis County Library Headquarters, where our friends in the History and Genealogy Department will be celebrating their Twentieth Anniversary!


The day begins in the auditorium, where the staff will be on hand for refreshments and a meet and greet at 10 a.m. A short program will be followed by tours of the department. Seven classes are scheduled for the afternoon. The classes are free, but they do require registration. Click here and scroll down the page that opens to see the offerings.

Did You Have Ancestors in a Poorhouse?

There have always been poor people, in every society and every time period. However, our treatment of those less fortunate has not always been exemplary. Sometimes a poor person might have had family or friends to help them out, but if not, a poor person might be dependent on the community for care, and their treatment would vary, depending on where and when they lived. If you had an ancestor who was in a poorhouse, you may want to learn more about what that meant and how to discover what might have caused them to be there. Read on for details.

StLGS Adds News and Events Facebook Page

St. Louis Genealogical Society hosts a thriving Facebook group, currently almost 2,600 people and growing every week. Now, for the benefit of our members and other interested genealogists, we've created a Facebook page dedicated solely to society news and events. The new page will not accept comments and is only for announcements and upcoming meetings, classes, and other important messages from the society. We are excited that this page will supplement the calendar on our website and will also be a vehicle to reach people who want the latest society information at their fingertips.

You do not have to ask to join the new page. Just "like" it and "follow" it so you get the updated announcements in your feed. You do have to join the group, however, if you want to post or make any comments.

If you are in the Facebook group, how do you get to the News and Events page or vice versa? Easy!

From the Facebook group to the News and Events page: Look at the right-hand side of the group page and you will see a white rectangle that says "St. Louis Genealogical Society N . . ." It's actually a link to the other page. Try it!

From the News and Events page to the Facebook group: Find the News and Events page at https://www.facebook.com/stlgs.newsandevents. If you want to go directly from there to the group, again look on the right-hand side of the page. You will see a blue button that says "Visit group." Click it and you will go to the group page.

 

Searching in the Facebook group: Did you know you could search for older posts in the Facebook group? Again, look at the side of the page, this time on the left. See the search box? Just pop in a keyword and it will find the messages in which that word appears. It's a simple way to search for popular topics like orphanages or cemeteries!

We look forward to seeing you on Facebook! And don't forget we're on Twitter, too. Follow us there at @StLGS or go to https://twitter.com/StLGS.

How to Find an Old Post and Other Social Media Search Tips

Have you ever seen a post in a Facebook group, then later couldn't find it when you went back to look for it? Social media can move fast these days, and as we have all been at our computers and using social media more and more, it's important we sharpen our search skills so we can more easily find what we want. For instance, you can search most blogs, including this one, for names, topics, places, and more. Similarly, you can search for people, surnames, and places (and more) in the St. Louis Genealogical Society's Facebook group. You can also quickly locate genealogy-specific accounts and tweets on Twitter. Here is how you can search smarter when you are using social media.

April 2021 Genealogy Meetings, Classes, and Events

Spring is here! We know the temptation is to get outside, but on those days when it's cloudy, cool, and rainy, or even if it's a sunny day but you just want to continue your genealogy journey, we have you covered! Our 2021 virtual schedule continues, with more interesting online webinars and classes, and, of course, the excitement is building for our annual Family History Conference, which also will be online again this year. Get out your calendars and be sure you have these April (and early May) dates jotted down!

Looking Forward to Another Successful Year with YOUR Help, Please!

What a roller coaster ride we all have been on for the past few years, but St. Louis Genealogical Society has survived and thrived, and we are looking ahead to another exciting year of genealogy, with your help. We have managed to weather the storm of pandemic and rising costs because of our wonderful, loyal members and friends, and as this year comes to a close, we are asking you, once again to remember the society in your year-end giving plans. We have managed to accomplish a great deal this past year, due to your support and generosity, and we are excited about what is in the future for the society. 

Like many of you, we watched the St. Louis County Library Headquarters building come down a few weeks ago, leading to the loss of our regular monthly and Special Interest Group meeting space, but we have worked with the library to begin holding meetings at alternate locations. We have opened our office again, welcomed back many of our faithful volunteers (and several new ones), and have begun to hold many of our meetings as hybrid, which allows so many more of you to attend. We continue to be very proud of what our society has and will accomplish!