Wasn't meaning to catch you out there! Putting postems on FreeBMD is a very good idea (I have loads there myself) -- it's just that it isn't like here or Ancestry, say -- there's no private-messaging system, so if you don't put contact info in your PM, you could miss out on having someone get in touch.
So Barnardos did come though with something. And two brothers, one a WWI casualty and the other also died young. With no apparent marriage for Nellie in Ontario up to 1928 (when she would have been over 30), but also no apparent death, maybe she stayed single, or maybe she went west for adventure and opportunity.
My great-aunt married a Home Child fellow in Canada. He was came here at about age 12 but I don't know about him until 1911 when he was a farm hand, as he quite likely was from the time he arrived. But after the war, he became a prosperous farmer. My other great-aunt had a life as bad as any Home Child ... born to an unmarried housemaid in England who married and became my great-grandmother, but my great-grandfather never accepted her into the family. She would have looked overjoyed in family photos, I imagine - because she was never allowed to be in them. She never married, but after the war she got what was a good job in a factory where she worked until she retired. Perhaps Nellie did something like that, or perhaps she stayed with the Edmonds as an unmarried daughter would have. It looks like she may have been taken on as a children's nurse, initially. There are 3-yr-old twin boys and a 7-yr-old in the 1911 household. Possibly the boys' families stayed in touch with her.
John MacKay Edmonds, the older son, married Hazel Grace Stevens in 1928. The marriage record is at Ancestry and might be worth viewing. Also, a child of theirs:
http://records.ancestry.com/Private_Edmonds_records.ashx?pid=115559294And here is the 1935 engagement of James Campbell Edmonds to Helen Doig:
http://www.elginogs.ca/Home/ancestor-indexes/newspapers/st-thomas-newspapers/sttj-1935-jan-marIf the more resourceful members here could find obituaries for any of the Edmonds family, they could provide names of living family members who might possibly have memories of Nellie.
Meanwhile, Nellie's Home Child record indicates that she travelled to Peterborough, which means the Barnardo home Hazelbrae there (and googling will find you lots of information about it). There has been considerable work done in Peterborough to find and preserve information about the home and the children. This is the main organization involved:
http://barnardohazelbraegroup.com/and some info:
http://www.trentvalleyarchives.com/the-heritage-gazette/barnardo-childrenYou might want to contact them, in case they could offer any local help that the English Barnardo organization can't. Unfortunately, since you have already traced Nellie well beyond her arrival, they would not likely have any other information.
