British Columbia History Journal - Now On-line Free

Cover photograph showing the sternwheeler 'Nasookin' almost at the Gray Creek wharf in about 1942. Since I usually travel by bus, I love this quirky British Columbian image! Just imagine how exacting those bus drivers must have been to 'balance' the bus just right every time so it would fit. British Columbia History, published quarterly by the BC Historical Federation (BCHF), Spring 2010, Special Transportation issue, Volume 43, Number 1.

Here I am at the British Columbia Historical Federation's annual conference. And right now I'm at the Book Fair which is open to the public today.

Available here is British Columbia History, the BC Historical Federation's journal, which is available to individual subscribers, or on some newstands, and at events like the BCHF Book Fair. British Columbia History is an excellent journal - if you have an interest in British Columbia's history and/or British Columbia families, you should be reading this regularly and checking back issues for articles of interest.

One of the most exciting things to happen recently in BC history and genealogy is the announcement that earlier issues of British Columbia History are now available free on-line.

On-line now are:

Full BCHF publications from 1923-2007 - including the BC Historical Association Annual Reports 1923, 1924, 1929, the BC Historical Quarterly 1937--1958, and BC Historical News/BC History 1968—2007 , together with indexes for the years from 1968-2005, all hosted on the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library's website.

You can browse by year and issue or search by keywords and date. Check the Help section for search operators you can use, like + or -. Note that the advanced search offers 'reversed stemming' searches, so, for example, you can enter the letters - wom - (the search is not case sensitive) and you will find results for passages with any words beginning with those letters - women woman women's, womanly, etc.

Since many of these are quite large files, you often will be prompted to choose the text version which is smaller and faster to load. You can then move back and forth in the text pages.

Also on-line are:

Covers and Tables of Contents for the most recent years - from 2008.

Indexes for Volumes 1-38 (2005).

For access to all these publications and indexes, go to the British Columbia History webpage.

This digitization project was done in partnership with the University of British Columbia Library as part of the BC History Digitization Program and it's intended that British Columbia History will continue to be digitized at five year intervals. The same UBC Library website also hosts British Columbia Reports, a law publication with the texts of legal decisions from 1884 to 1948, which will also be of great interest to genealogists and historians. For more about UBC's BC History Digitization Program, see the Program website.

The Editor of British Columbia History, Andrea Lister, is inviting submissions for future issues. Guidelines for authors are on the BCHF website. (Don't forget though if you are writing an article on British Columbia family history, you might like to submit that to The British Columbia Genealogist, the quarterly journal of the British Columbia Genealogical Society. Contact me for more information on that.)

The BC Historical Federation has been actively promoting interest in the history of British Columbia since 1922. Today the BCHF is the collective voice for over 177 member organizations, from local history groups and museums around the province like the Horsefly Historical Society, the Fort Nelson Historical Society and the Kitimat Museum and Archives to more specialized ones like the Historical Map Society of BC and the Women's History Network of BC. A list of all BCHF members is on the BC Historical Federation website: www.bchistory.ca