Canadian mining

[Cazza47]

I have been researching some men who went over to canada to mine coal in the early 1900's, there seemed to be quite a lot of english and scottish men went over at this time.
Could anyone tell me what prompted this, how did they know there was work coal mining in canada and was there not enough work in this country?
Thank You.
Carol

[valeriec]

Do you know which province and community the men went to? That could help determine the answer to your question.

[Cazza47]

The 2 men I am researching Thomas and Isaac Douglas went to Nanaimo in British Columbia, thanks
Carol

[Ken MacLean]

Carol,

Google Nanaimo-coal. This will result in a few hits, including this Wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_and_landmarks_in_the_Nanaimo_area

[Cazza47]

Thank you

[Jacquie in Canada]

I have been researching some men who went over to canada to mine coal in the early 1900's, there seemed to be quite a lot of english and scottish men went over at this time.
Could anyone tell me what prompted this, how did they know there was work coal mining in canada and was there not enough work in this country?

There were a number of different immigration schemes offered by the Canadian government to increase immigration to Canada. They would have been advertised in the UK.

Jacquie

[lilybell]

Hi Cazza
Are you looking for specific information on Thomas and Isaac Douglas?
Were they born in Wales...what was their dates of birth and parents names..

Lilybell

[jorose]

Previous threads:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=658283.0
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=658118.0

They would have known if jobs were hard to come by in their local community - if they had trouble getting any!  In terms of knowledge of the wider situation, there would have been immigration schemes which deliberately tried to recruit certain classes of immigrants, newspapers articles about the economic situation at home and abroad and on trends in emigration, etc., and word of mouth from other local people who had already emigrated.

Word of mouth is why you often see groups of people from the same area immigrating to very specific parts of the world. Jimmy from down the road went to such and such a place and did well for himself, and wrote back home - there's loads of jobs here, they pay well, etc.

[Cazza47]

Thomas was born in 1884 in Aspatria area of cumberland, his brother Isaac was born in 1894 also Aspatria area, their parents were John Douglas also local to Aspatria area and Elizabeth Cain born in Liverpool.
I was trying to find anything about their time in Canada,
Carol