Eve Lazarus
10 ways to research your home – or someone’ else’s through online sources
Writer, librarian and podcaster Megan Cole sent me an email this week asking for some tips on researching the house where she used to live at 2856 West 5th in Kitsilano. It was such a great question, that it’s my topic for this week’s blog post.
When I was researching my 2007 book At Home with History I spent most of my life at the Vancouver Archives and on the 7th floor of the Vancouver Public Library. Now, instead of trekking downtown, much of the information is available to me here at home.
Today, the digital world just got a bit better with the launch of three very cool new online toys.
In some ways, researching your home is like an archeological dig. But with a bit of patience you can find out who built your home, who lived there before you, who was murdered there, who died of a comfortable old age, perhaps, even, who’s haunting it now.
1. City Directories:
I always start with the city directories, and now thanks to the Vancouver Public Library, all of B.C.
On February 23, Jennifer Clay gave an A to Z workshop to home owners wanting to research the history of their homes. Jennifer has written a guest blog based on her presentation.
By Jennifer Clay
I live in a 1926 heritage home in North Vancouver, and while I had a vague idea of the previous occupants of our home, the key word is ‘vague’.
Some of my favourite pictures in Sensational Victoria are the then and now ones in James Bay. There’s a fabulous archival shot of Carr House on Government Street taken in 1869 and a current photo that doesn’t look all that much different—143 years later. Another find is of the Queen Anne house on South Turner Street built in 1889.
For more tips on researching your home’s history see At Home with History: the secrets of Greater Vancouver’s heritage homes
The District of North Vancouver has two heritage inventories—Modern Architecture (1930-1965) published in 1997, and one with houses that date prior to 1930 published in 1993. Both are hopelessly out of date, many houses no longer exist, and others that should have been included, were not.
As the archivist for the CBC in Vancouver, Colin Preston looks after more than 250,000 items and programmes on film and videotape. And, as he’ll tell you, it’s the best historical archive of film footage west of Toronto.
The Deep Cove Heritage Society has collected and scanned over 3,700 photos of the area. Most are from the scrapbooks of early residents.
