“It’s Really Where Your Parents Were”

Abstract

This essay focuses on early twentieth-century missionary British world missionary children and their families to provide a point of comparison with an existing body of work on nineteenth-century missionary children. Through a case study approach, focusing on two Presbyterian missionary families (Scottish and New Zealand) and using both written and oral sources, it asks how we might usefully historicize their lives. The case studies indicate that early twentieth-century children’s historical lives were primarily framed within the religiously defined narratives of the missionary family—albeit narratives that varied depending on geographical, cultural, theological, and temporal contexts or with respect to points of family origin—and that these narratives were articulated differently from children’s and parents’ perspectives. While family is central to the analysis, the article makes a case for attending to the voices of both children and parents, within broader historiographical and historical contexts.