Documents & Records
Provincial and City Directories
Provincial and city directories are a very useful source of information for genealogists, although early listings for Chinese mainly correspond to the small number who had established businesses. Most of the Chinese population was transient and is not well represented in early directories.
This section provides detailed information on Chinese residents listed in B.C. directories.
General information on directory research for other provinces is available on the Vancouver Public Library's genealogy Directories page and on the Canadian Genealogy Centre's City Directories page.
Ancestry Library Edition includes the Canadian Genealogy Index, 1600s-1900s database, which indexes Chinese (and other) residents listed in a number of early Canadian directories. Ancestry Library Edition is available for free at all VPL locations. Non-VPL users can access these records using Ancestry Library Edition's private subscription version, Ancestry.com.
Note that with the exception of B.C., listings for Chinese are unlikely to be found in pre-1900 provincial and city directories, as the vast majority of the Chinese population was concentrated in Canada's westernmost province during that period.
Photo banner: Detail from VPL Historical Photograph 78362
