Social Services & Social Sciences

Baker, Josephine

Baker (the surname of her second husband) was born Josephine Carson to an unmarried couple in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri. Her father abandoned the family before she was a year old, 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]

Barber, Dee Seton

Barber was adopted in 1938 by Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946) and his second wife, Julia Moses Buttree. Seton had founded the Woodcraft movement in 1902 in Connecticut, which developed in... [more]

Divine, David

Divine was a long-term foster child in Scotland, after being abandoned by his family when a toddler, and spent nine years in a children's home. He has been the assistant director of the ... [more]

Douglas, Anthony

Douglas was born to an 18-year-old unmarried girl in the northeast of England and placed for adoption in London as a baby. The family included a sister, also adopted. He was executive di... [more]

Douglas, Catherine

Douglas was born in Shannon, Ireland, orphaned as a young girl and then raised in a convent in Dublin. When she was 20 she emigrated to New Zealand, joining an uncle who was already living ... [more]

Faka'osilea, Lorris

Faka'osilea was born Lorris Bristow and given by her parents to her mother's childless sister and her husband to raise. She was brought up at Ngaruawahia, center of the Maori King Movement,... [more]

Fever went into care as a baby and spent almost his entire childhood in a succession of foster families and children's homes. Some were good but in others he was abused physically, emotional... [more]

Fisher, Florence Anna

Fisher (she has reverted to her birth name) spent 20 years, from the age of 22, searching (successfully) for her birth parents in the face of nearly total official and family opposition. H... [more]

Fox, Ruth May

Fox was born to a married couple who converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) five months after her birth. Her mother died in 1855 and her father was then sent... [more]