The histories of Oak Bay people and the places where they lived and worked are often closely linked in archival records and historic printed sources. Discover more about the history of a person, house, business or organization using a combination of online resources, historic secondary sources, and the archival maps, photographs, directories, property appraisal cards, tax assessments, and other records at Oak Bay Archives.

Records of buildings: surviving plans, drawings and other documentation about existing individual houses and other buildings are still current business records, and are therefore with the municipal planning & inspections department rather than in the Archives. Homeowners can apply for access to and copies of those records from the Building & Planning Department.

Archival and historic sources:

• City Directories: Historic city directories are a great place to start, whether you’re looking for the address where a particular person lived, or the names, residences, and occupations of the previous occupants of your house, as well as the development of streets and neighbourhoods. Older Victoria directories are available online through the British Columbia City Directories 1860-1955 project (Vancouver Public Library). Earlier decades are indexed by both streets and names. Oak Bay Archives holds paper copies of Greater Victoria city directories for most years 1960s-1990s.

• BC Birth, marriage, death, and early baptismal records: search via BC Archives Vital Events

• Census records: Victoria census records 1871-1911 search via viHistory and 1825-1931 at Library & Archives Canada

• Historic records for churches and other places of worship (baptismal, marriage and funeral records etc) may be retained locally or in a central archive
  • Anglican churches: Archives of the Anglican Diocese of British Columbia and check holdings on MemoryBC
  • United churches, including Methodist and Presbyterian antecedents: Archives of the Pacific Mountain Region of the United Church of Canada and check holdings on MemoryBC
  • Roman Catholic churches: Archives of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Victoria a

• Maps & Plans: Fire Insurance plans are available at the archives for Oak Bay, published in 1925 and updated to 1950. Earlier versions (1885-1916) are available online via UVic Libraries

• Historic Victoria Newspapers:
  • British Colonist 1858-1980 (UVic and Times-Colonist)
  • Victoria Daily Times 1896-1940 (UVic at archive.org)
  • Index of Historical Victoria Newspapers 1858-1936 (UVic)
  • UBC's online collection of BC Historical Newspapers includes several from Vancouver Island

• Photographs: Oak Bay Archives photographic collection includes thousands of images of people, landscapes, and buildings.

• Building Files: Building files are available for over 200 individual Oak Bay homes, plus an inventory of all residential buildings with relevant dates

• Building and utility permits: containing names of owners, builders/contractors, building dates etc for addresses

• Tax Assessments: Oak Bay tax assessment ledgers contain lists of owners and occupiers as well as the legal description of the property and its value. Assessment rolls are held off site and can be viewed at Oak Bay Archives by researchers by appointment in advance.

• Voters’ Lists: Oak Bay Archives has a small collection of historic voters’ lists for the municipality

Heritage Houses: To find out how to designate your Oak Bay house as a heritage property, or for information on cost-sharing grants for designated heritage houses, please contact the Oak Bay Heritage Foundation.

More archival records elsewhere:

Not all Oak Bay-related material is held in Oak Bay’s archives! Especially for individuals, families and organizations, but also for land and buildings, researchers often need to call on a network of related materials in more than one archive repository. This is particularly true for records of settler history in the Oak Bay area dating before 1906: the City of Victoria Archives and the BC Archives tend to hold the surviving administrative records for the area that became Oak Bay.

• BC Archives
• Saanich Archives
• City of Victoria Archives
• Esquimalt Archives
• MemoryBC – union catalogue of archival holdings in BC
• Canadian Archival Information Network
• Library & Archives Canada (National Archives)

Looking for more in-depth information from published sources? Try:

• local history holdings on your topic in the Greater Victoria Public Library system
• BC Historical Books (UBC Open Collections)
• BC Historical Newspapers (UBC Open Collections)
• Oak Bay Archives reference library catalogue – use ‘Search this library’ near top right, or click column headings to rearrange listings
• BC Bookworld