Tracing Impossible or Birth Family Extinct

Includes, where appropriate, abductees, captured children whose birth identities were deliberately concealed, slaves, foundlings, and feral children.

Allan, Jani

Allan was adopted aged one month by a wealthy British-South African couple, John and Janet Fry. John Fry died when she was 10. She has been a model and married a wealthy South African, G... [more]

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]

Andal

In Tamil Nadu tradition, Andal was a girl (by some considered to be a manifestation of the goddess Bhoodevi) found under a tulsi bush in the flower garden of the temple of Vishnu at Srivill... [more]

Anderson, Edward Warrigal

Anderson was born in Victoria, Australia and named after a dingo that witnessed his birth. When he was 10 years old he ran away from Moonee Ponds to escape government agents in the area to ... [more]

Argentinian Orphans of the Dirty War

Between 1976 and 1985 the military dictators of Argentina operated a policy of kidnapping, torturing, murdering and "disappearing" their political opponents. Children of their vic... [more]

Bemo, John

Bemo, born Talamasmico in or before 1825, was the nephew of the great Seminole Chief Osceola. When he was nine or 10 (in 1835) his father died after a drunken brawl in St. Augustine, Florid... [more]

Burnum, Burnum

Burnum was born Harry Penrith (he took an Aboriginal name after his great grandfather in 1976) into a nomadic Aboriginal family at Wallaga Lake, New South Wales. When his mother died soon a... [more]

Canadian Native Children

Canadian Native Children were, as were Native American and Alaskan Native Children , and Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children , routinely rounded up and taken away fr... [more]

Capitein, Jacobus

Capitein was a former slave brought to the Netherlands by a Dutch ship captain. In Leiden he attended school, learned several European languages and in 1742 he became a clergyman after theo... [more]

Captives

The capture of children and adults in war and by raiding parties was and still is a fairly common practice. They were occasionally intended as food, sometimes used as hostages, more often a... [more]