Exile or Persecution (Religious, Political or Social)

Amo, Anton Wilhelm

Amo was born on the Gold Coast (Ghana) about 1703 and taken to Amsterdam when he was about four. He was given to the Duke of Wolfenbüttel and baptised Anton Wilhelm. He was educated with su... [more]

Apess, William

Apess's parents were itinerant basket-makers and he lived as a young child mostly with his grandparents, who were very cruel to him. When his grandmother broke his arm he was rescued by an ... [more]

Bálint, Lea

Balint spent part of World War II living under an assumed name in a Polish convent in Brwinow, near Warsaw. Her parents placed her there when she was five and she emerged at the end of the ... [more]

Bokassa I

Jean-Bédel Bokassa was born to a married couple, and his father was a chief. His father was murdered by the French colonial occupiers when he was six, and his mother committed suicide a wee... [more]

Bradford, William

Bradford was born into a well-off family in Yorkshire, but his father died in 1591. His mother remarried in 1593 and William was then raised by his grandfather and uncles as a farmer. Wh... [more]

Brady, John Green

Brady was born in New York. His mother died when he was very young. His father remarried, but Brady seems to have been unhappy with his step-mother, and he ran away from home when he was ei... [more]

Christy, Hirini Whaanga

Christy was the descendent of an important Ngati Kahungunu-Ngati Rakaipaaka family. As a young child he was given to his grandparents as a tamaiti whangai. His family had converted to the C... [more]

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) practiced a form of ritual adoption from about 1842 to 1894. It is apparently first referred to in an article in The Latter-day... [more]

Church, John

Church was a foundling , discovered on the steps of St. John's Church Clerkenwell, (hence his name) or St. Andrew's Church Holborn as a young toddler, barely able to walk. He was sent to t... [more]

Cohn, Leopold

Cohn was born Itsak Leib Jaszovics in Berezna, Hungary and orphaned when he was seven. I have been unable to discover who cared for him after that. The story he told of himself was tha... [more]