Family who emgrated to Canada - help needed with details

[deejayEn]

That's good detective work about the date, thank you. And thanks for checking the deportation files, I will take a look at that link.

One thing I found in my research were references to a conman also called David Phillips (AKA David Williams) who I thought might be the same person as my ancestors 2nd husband and I wondered if that was why they were deported. Bizarely even though he was deported from America in 1915 for larceny/fraud and married twice bigamously in Canada, he is on the 1921 Idaho census with his original wife and child and sees to have got away with it.

[dbree]

Welcome 

1920's Canada was very turbulent with social unrest, riots, strikes etc. With that came very
harsh deportation laws and many were deported for bizarre reasons....as in bad language.

Having said that, on David's Form30A, it says he was sponsored by the Overseas Settlement
Scheme. With that came a time frame of 2 years to "make good". That was later changed to 3
years then to 5. It's possible looking at those dates that's what may have happened. They arrived April 1920 and were deported Sept 1922.

David's F30A, page 2697 from Library and Archives Canada
https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/mass-digitized-archives/ocean-arrivals/Pages/item.aspx?EntryName=Petrovich%2c+S.+-+Picard%2c+M%c3%a9lanie&PageId=4043709

DB

[deejayEn]

That makes sense because it said on the outgoing form that David Phillips was going to live/work with his sister a Mrs Clarke in (I think) Lewvan, Saskatchewan as a horseman, but on the census the family in Saskatoon on their own, and on the return passenger list David Phillips has no occupraion so perhaps he lost his job.

[dbree]

Hi,

Yes, being unemployed was another reason to be deported. 

I think it is Louvain, north east of Biggar, and it most likely became incorporated into Biggar.
David may have been destined to his sister, but perhaps Overseas Employment Scheme had
other ideas for him.

I looked for the F30A form for James in the hope that "pink card" would be mentioned on
the back of the form, but no luck, for him or Arthur. Either missing or filed under who knows what name. It's not often that I have seen the "pink card" reference.

1920's was the 3rd wave of the Spanish flu, there was TB outbreaks, etc which makes me guess that perhaps pink card may be health related.

DB

[aghadowey]

One thing I found in my research were references to a conman also called David Phillips (AKA David Williams) who I thought might be the same person as my ancestors 2nd husband and I wondered if that was why they were deported. Bizarely even though he was deported from America in 1915 for larceny/fraud and married twice bigamously in Canada, he is on the 1921 Idaho census with his original wife and child and sees to have got away with it. 

 
Is there a possibility that this is your David Phillips? If so, could the arriving in Canada in 1921 Census mean that he came there earlier? It might help to figure our a timeline to keep tract of things. The U.S. census would have been 1920 (details as of 1 Jan.1920) not 1921. The Canadian census was 1 June 1921.
Have you found any of the family in 1939 Register in England?

[deejayEn]

I'm still working it all out (it's very complicated because there are so many similarities) but I found the other David Phillips (born in Wales) on the census in Idaho in 1921 with his wife and daughter and my David Phillips (born in Scotland) on the canadian census in Saskatoon, so I'm pretty sure it isn't same person. It's a shame because the other DP was a con man who pretended to be a survivor of the Titanic to gain financial help. So not a nice man but a fascinating character.

Back in England I found Emma and her two sons in Hayes, Middlesex. Sadly the two boys both got into trouble with the law. David Philips is not with them, I think he died in 1925 but I'm not sure.

[ThrelfallYorky]

One of my lot was deported back to England from Canada in the 1920s/30s, he'd been gassed in the Great War, and gone down with T.B., so that did happen.
TY

[deejayEn]

I found that David Phillips died in 1925 just three years later, so I got his death certificate and it seems he had what sounds like a stoke and paralysis and died in Hanwell asylum aged 43. If he had been taken ill in Canada this would explain why he couldn't work. He had been a soldier for 21 years.

[jorose]

Regarding the "pink card", the only reference I can find is from 1908 and indicates that this may related to luggage and customs checks (see page 26).

https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=cangaz&IdNumber=8597&q=%22pink%20card%22&ecopy=cgc_p1-2_v041_n000_t001_000_19080627_p00026