Discover your home's history

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  Find out when your home was built

  An excellent way to find out when your home was built is to search the water service records. Usually water service is applied for just as a building is nearing completion.

  The Archives has City of Vancouver water service records from 1888  to 1993.

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  Search for building permits

  Once you know the approximate date of the construction of your home, you can search for building permits for the property. The Archives has building permit registers from 1901 to 1947.

  In the register, you can find the following details:

  • Date of the building permit
  • Applicant's name
  • Estimated cost of construction
  • Names of any architects involved (in some cases)
  • Construction details found in miscellaneous remarks (sometimes)
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  Learn who lived in your house

  City directories are an excellent source for finding out the occupancy history of your home and the context of its neighbourhood. The Archives has City Directories from 1860 to 1996. In each City Directory, there are two sections:

  • An alphabetic street guide
  • An alphabetic index of names of individuals and businesses

  Once you know what year your home was built, use the alphabetic street guide to look up your home by address, and find out the names of the people who lived there and for how long they stayed. Once you know their names, you can look them up in the index of names, which lists they did for a living and often the names of their spouses.

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  Find out if there's a photo of your home

  The Archives photograph holdings include thousands of images of houses, apartments, street views, and interiors.

  Even if you don't find a picture of your home, your neighbourhood is certain to be represented in the collections.

Additional resources

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  Fire insurance plans

  Fire insurance plans show details of individual buildings, gathered at various intervals, for insurance purposes. Details include the following:

  • Type of construction of the building
  • Number of storeys
  • Position of buildings on the lot
  • Lot features such as driveways
  • Location of water hydrants
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  Property tax records

  These records can be used to determine previous owners of your home, and your home's value over the years. The Archives holds tax assessment records and or tax billing statements for the City of Vancouver from 1887 up to 2005, with certain gaps in years missing or unavailable.

  We have some years for the municipalities of Point Grey and South Vancouver prior to amalgamation, as well as minimal property tax records for some areas elsewhere in British Columbia, 1880-1913.

  Read our property tax reference guide PDF file (461 KB) for more details on the property tax records we have in our holdings, as well as how to obtain more recent property tax information not held by the Archives.

  Important note Searches conducted by Archives staff may be requested for a fee of $25 per property, per year searched. Contact the Archives for information.

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  Architectural plans

  Although most of the architectural plans at the Archives are for public buildings or other significant structures, it's worth searching to see if your home was designed by a Vancouver area architectural or landscape architecture firm.

  Important note Permission of the registered owner of a building must be obtained before viewing any architectural plans. Contact the Archives about accessing restricted architectural records.

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  Pamphlets

  The pamphlets collection has a number of brochures, catalogues, and similar published items that depict home styles, floor plans, and other architectural features for various eras of the city's development.

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  Blog series

  Records commonly sought after are also explained in a step-by-step blog series:

  • Part I External website, opens in new tab
  • Part II External website, opens in new tab
  • Part III External website, opens in new tab
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  Reference guides

  We’ve written reference guides for a number of the types of records described above. These PDF guides are downloadable and provide instructions for how these records can be viewed. Some also include other suggested online resources.

  Check out our reference guides for common kinds of research