Caleb Nickerson
SHAWVILLE July 15, 2017
Local genealogist and historian Gloria Tubman hosted a book signing at Café 349 in Shawville on Saturday to promote her publication: A Genealogists’ Guide to Researching British Home Children.
Tubman said that the book is a collection of articles from her Genealogy Gleanings column in The Equity, dating back to 2010, as well as another article she penned for the British Isles Family History Association of Greater Ottawa. They outline strategies amateur historians can use to research the history of British Home Children in Canada and were assembled by one of Tubman’s associates.

“Sandra Roberts from Global Genealogy identified a need for a book on guiding people with researching Home Children,” she said, explaining that she has known Roberts for many years, but the pair started on the book last November. “Many of the books that are out there today … the non-fiction books are usually stories in the children’s life. There are very few books that are reference for a person that wants to find something about [a] home child.”
She said that some of the stories feature her grandmother – who was a Home Child – but doesn’t focus on any one person.
“There’s not a particular story per se on a child’s life but I have used a child to illustrate how I found [information],” she explained.
Roberts condensed 180 articles that Tubman gave her into a concise 45 page collection, which was published back in June, just in time for the Ontario Genealogical Conference. Tubman said that some of the information she covered was novel even to seasoned historians.
“There was information that they had not previously known about in it,” she said, referring to Roberts and her husband Rick, who operate Global Genealogy in Carleton Place. “To me then, the reason for putting this book out has been justified.”
Copies of the book are available online at the Global Genealogy website, at the Pontiac Printshop or through Tubman directly.