Daily AncestorFoster child
A foster child is a child raised in a family that is not its own by birth, without being legally adopted.
Webster's 1828 dictionary defines a foster child as one nursed by a woman not its mother or raised by a man not its father. Today the term means a child placed by the state in another family's care, usually for a time, with no adoption.
In 1854 the Children's Aid Society in New York launched the orphan trains, and from 1868 Massachusetts paid families to board children, the start of placing-out in families instead of institutions. Agency and court records may say more than the census line.
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Daily Ancestor. "Foster child." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/relationships/foster-child. Last checked 2026-10-12.