Heritage Projects

The Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia (CCHSBC) was registered in May 2004. The Society's main objective is "to bring out the untold history of ethnic Chinese within the history of British Columbia. We will do this through sustained efforts at document preservation, research, family and oral history promotion, public education programs, an active web site, and many other initiatives." CCHSBC's inaugural event, "Routes to Our Roots: Finding Chinese in Canada" was held in November 2004. Sponsored by the Vancouver Public Library, the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the Association of Chinese Canadian Professionals, the workshop had a largely genealogical focus. It was followed in January 2005 by "A Free Taste of Chinese Canadian History: The Inaugural Chinese Canadian History Fair", which received extensive pre-event media coverage, including an hour-long open line radio program on a popular local radio show. Numerous callers from around the province phoned to share their own stories and personal histories. A number of future projects have been suggested, such as the creation of an inventory of existing Chinese Canadian genealogies. Meanwhile, the Society facilitates the exchange of information between members by providing space on its website for members to informally post their research interests.

The Chinese Canadian Military Museum Society is engaged in an oral history project, funded by Canadian Heritage, to record the stories of Chinese Canadian war veterans.

Chinese Canadian Stories has gathered the work of universities and community groups from across Canada with a vision of giving Canadians, young and old, the tools to discover and make their own history, using the latest advances in digital technology to access, recover, and record their ancestors' past. Scholars and family researchers can use the searchable databases to access digital collections with over 20,000 photos, videos, newspapers, and historical documents. You can also search for Chinese Canadian ancestors who came to Canada before 1949 in the Register of Chinese Immigrants to Canada, 1886-1949, also called the Head Tax database which contains over 97,000 entries.

The Chinese Community History Room is one of several services offered by the Chinese Community Library Services Association. The purpose of the room is to collect, organize and preserve material documenting the history of the Chinese community in Vancouver. Collection highlights include historical photographs and a complete set of Chinatown Today.

The Chinese Experience in British Columbia: 1850-1950 website offers a rich portrait of the history of the Chinese community in B.C., exploring themes of immigration, work, and social/cultural life. Key features include a searchable database that provides access to the digitized holdings of the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection and the City of Vancouver Archives' Yip Sang Collection.

The Heroes of Confederation heritage initiative is being developed by the Kamloops Chinese Cultural Association. It focuses on the sacrifices and contributions of Chinese railway workers during the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. The goal of the Heroes of Confederation Project is to build a Kamloops Chinese Heritage Railway Museum, which will also store the records of Chinese railway workers so that family members can trace their roots.

The Historical Chinese-Language Materials in British Columbia project is a collaborative initiative of the Asian Library and the Centre for Chinese Research, both at the University of British Columbia, and the David See-Chai Lam Centre for International Communication at Simon Fraser University. The database created by the project comprises over 11,000 records of Chinese-language items such as manuscripts, newspapers, correspondence, genealogical and family records, business transaction records, association records, certificates, receipts, textbooks, and photographs. These items were documented throughout the province, and represent contributions from seventeen resource centres, seven pioneer families, and a number of individuals. The resulting database is searchable in Chinese, English, and Pinyin. In order to improve the hit rate on searches, an English-Chinese dictionary is incorporated into the index file. The dictionary automatically converts searches from vernacular Chinese to Pinyin and vice versa. The database incorporates more than 500 images of archival materials. The next stage of the project will focus on digitizing major collections. A downloadable template is available, allowing remote users to contribute records and images for items in their possession.

The Multicultural Canada Project is a collaborative effort involving the Simon Fraser University Library, the University of Calgary, and several other organizations, including the Sien Lok Society, a Chinese Canadian heritage organization in Calgary. The vision of the Project is to work with community-based organizations to gather Canadian multicultural print, oral and visual heritage materials and preserve them online, in order to correct the imbalance that exists in relation to similar English and French-language materials. The scope of the project encompasses Chinese, Doukhobour, Ukrainian, Indic, Japanese and Persian materials. One of the initial Chinese-language projects, for which a prototype has been developed, will be the digitization of the Chinese Times, complete with a corresponding index in both Chinese and English. The Multicultural Canada Project, although not primarily aimed at genealogists, could ultimately encompass a wide range of resources, including genealogically useful materials.

The Nanaimo Chinatowns Project is based at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, B.C. The project entails an exploration of the history of the city's Chinese community, which began with the arrival of the first Chinese in the 1860s. The project website provides a variety of resources related to this theme, including historical photographs, images of artifacts, maps, documents, and interviews.