Chances are many of you, my readers, do have ancestors who came this way. I have lived here on Vancouver Island for 25 years but can claim no genealogical connection other than the fact that my parents married here during the Second World War.

Something about the Island
Vancouver Island is the largest island on the west coast of North America, about 460 km long and 50-80 km wide (that’s 286 miles long and 31-50 miles wide). It lies alongside the mainland of British Columbia separated by the Georgia Strait, and to the north of the state of Washington, separated by the Juan de Fuca Strait. Like the west coast of the U.S.A., it sits on the San Andreas Fault; those who live here know about earthquakes.

British, Spanish, Russian, French, and American explorers and traders were coming this way regularly by the end of the 1700s. Key to the major British presence were the voyages of James Cook and George Vancouver. Fort Victoria was built in 1843. The Oregon Treaty established the island as British territory in 1846 and Vancouver Island became a Crown Colony in 1849.

In 1858 stories of gold in the Fraser River spread rapidly; the small community around Fort Victoria on the southern tip of Vancouver Island became the jumping off point. Ships arrived daily disembarking hundreds at a time. What had been a predominantly Scottish settlement of 300 became a polyglot city of 7000 virtually overnight. Contemporary assessments of the numbers going through Victoria in 1858 are as high as 20,000, most arriving from California. Things cooled down a bit by the end of the year and the editorial in the local paper expressed this hope for the future: “American energy exerting its power with a British balance-wheel will, we have strong hopes, place this Colony ere many years where California should have been today.”

Victoria’s population had become predominantly American. A few years later the papers reported in some detail all the battles of the Civil War, and July 4th was every bit as important a day as May 24th (Queen Victoria’s birthday). After the gold rush, emigrants from the British Isles continued to come to the Island and the economy was built around coal, timber, fishing, and agriculture. Outside of Victoria and vicinity, settlements grew around Duncan, Nanaimo, Port Alberni, Campbell River and in the Comox valley.

Vancouver Island Online
A defined geographical area and a moderate population size make Vancouver Island an ideal subject for online databases; there are some excellent British Columbia websites as well. I am going to introduce three: viHistory, B.C. Archives Vital Records, and British Columbia Lists.

The viHistory website (www.vihistory.ca ) is the creation of history professors at Malaspina College in Nanaimo (an hour north of Victoria) and the University of Victoria. Its offerings include the census of the Island for 1881 and 1891 and the census of Victoria for 1901. These are fully searchable and set out all the information in the census returns. There are directory listings for Nanaimo and Victoria taken from provincial directories of 1882 and 1892, and for Victoria in 1902. Tax assessment rolls of Nanaimo in 1881 and 1891 are also here. The maps selection has seven of Victoria, two of Nanaimo and one of the Island ranging in date from 1859 to 1932.

If you find something at viHistory the logical next step is to look for vital records at the BC Archives website (www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/ ). Deaths up to 1982, marriages to 1927, and births to 1902 can be searched for in the online index. The images of these records are coming to the Web over a period of time; any positive index search states whether an image is available (there is a charge for this). The records begin in 1872. The search tool works well; minimum information required is a name, wild cards can be used and there is an interesting browse feature.

Anyone looking for Vancouver Island connections should drop in on British Columbia Lists (www.rootsweb.com/~canbc/bc.htm ). For Vancouver Island there are links to the items at viHistory as well as an 1868 directory of Victoria, the incomplete 1871 census, land sales before 1858, lists of unclaimed letters, and old picture postcards. Some B.C.-wide items are also relevant; e.g., voters lists of 1875 and 1898 include residents of Victoria, Esquimalt, Cowichan, Nanaimo, Comox and (in 1898 only) Alberni. Hugh Armstrong of Victoria did most of this work.

Reasons to Visit
This is not all that you can find online about Vancouver Island. Check out the websites of the various cities and towns on the island, their archives, libraries and genealogical societies. Begin your search via the B.C. part of the Canadian Gen-web Project (www.rootsweb.com/~canbc/ ), perhaps used in conjunction with Cyndislist (www.cyndislist.com/bc.htm ) and your favorite search engine. A broad approach will provide plenty of useful information for research and planning a visit.

There are good reasons to come. In October Conde Nast Traveler magazine named Victoria “top city” in the Americas and Vancouver Island as the number one temperate island destination in the world. The awards are based on the views of subscribers to the magazine—no doubt people of discriminating taste. Island advantages include the comfortable pace of life, lack of pollution, gardens, and fine scenery. They could add genealogical resources to the list.

Living here, I get to enjoy the ambience; too bad I haven't the double benefit of being able to trace my own family back to the beginnings of settlement on this beautiful island.

Further Reading:
Pethick, Derek. Victoria: The Fort. Mitchell Press, 1968 (A more detailed history of the city and a good read.)

Reksten, Terry. More English Than the English. Orca Books, 1997 (A delightful portrait of Victoria society through the years.)

Sherry Irvine, CGRS, FSA (Scot) is an author, teacher, and lecturer specializing in English and Scottish family history. She is the author of Your English Ancestry (2nd ed, 1998) and Your Scottish Ancestry (1997) and she is a regular contributor to several journals including Genealogical Computing. Since 1996, she has been a study tour leader, course coordinator, and instructor for the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research at Samford University. She teaches online for the family history program of Vermont College and has lectured at conferences in Canada, the United States, and Australia. She is the president of the Association of Professional Genealogists.