A University of British Columbia (UBC) blog post about how digitized archival collections are being used to help preserve heritage buildings in Vancouver contains two genealogy bijoux.
One of the gems is UBC’s BC Historical Newspapers archive that contains more than 160 newspapers. That in itself is a goldmine of information.
Historic Vancouver building permits
The gem that particularly stands out is a database that contains more than 40,000 pre-1929 building permits from the municipalities of Vancouver, South Vancouver and Point Grey before they were amalgamated into what is now known as modern-day Vancouver.
The searchable building permits database was created by “painstakingly transcribing hand-written city ledgers found within the City of Vancouver archives allows for users to find key information about particular buildings in Vancouver.”
Although the database, sponsored by the Heritage Vancouver Society, was created to assist individuals with historical research pertaining to the City of Vancouver, it can help family historians learn about the home where their ancestors lived.
The database can be searched by building owner and address. When exploring the database, keep in mind that street names can change and addresses can shift.
If you are fortunate to find an ancestor’s home in the database, you will also learn its value at the time the building permit was issued and the name of the architect and builder.
Heritage Vancouver’s searchable building permits database can help genealogists learn a bit more about their ancestors.
The database is an exact transcription of original, historic building permits dating from 1901 to the early 1920s.
- City of Vancouver:
1901 to 1904 and 1909 to 1921 - Corporation of the District of South Vancouver:
Oct 1911 to Dec 1921 - Corporation of Point Grey:
May 14, 1912 to Dec 1923
Michelle Blackwell wrote in the UBC blog post, “The ledgers provide some, but not all the information that would have been included in the individual permit document. Long-form building permits were issued to the applicant and a copy was made for the city; unfortunately, it was common practice to record overview information into registers, like the ledgers that have survived, then purge the full records.”
Where there are gaps in the information remaining, UBC’s BC Historical Newspapers archive has been useful.
Patrick Gunn, member of the Heritage Vancouver Society’s board of directors, said, “Once the transcriptions for a given year are complete, we’ve been using a few key newspapers that luckily captured some of the building permit details which no longer exist in city records and adding these into the building permits to create a more complete building record. Trade journals like The Daily Building Record, Vancouver Building Record, and the British Columbia Record have been the most useful to us.”
The primary sources for these records are the original building permit registers stored at the City of Vancouver Archives. The registers consist of applications to construct, move or improve existing buildings.
Prior to 1912, City of Vancouver descriptions of the work included whether the building was frame or brick, and the type of building (e.g., dwelling, shed, store).
Read more about the building permits database and newspaper archive in the blog post, UBC Library’s B.C Historical Newspaper archive plays critical role in helping to preserve heritage buildings in Vancouver.
