British Columbia Online Historical Newspapers Summary

The Ancestor Hunt regularly adds and updates new collection links, as well as searches for and fixes broken links.
(This page's most recent update is December 2024)
______________________________________


British Columbia is one of the Canadian provinces that does have a single central online repository for searching historical newspapers. . Also, there are quite a few free publications available on other sites and there are collections available on subscription sites. Below is a list of where the titles are stored and the link so that you can access them.

So go for it – find your British Columbia ancestors and all the interesting articles that capture the stories of their lives. 

Please note that I have not always entered the dates that are included in the collections, as I suspect they will change as more items are digitized. Also, I suspect that some of these links may change over time – so if there is a dead link – please use your favorite search engine to find their new location. 

Free Sites:

Provincewide Collections:

British Columbia Historical Newspapers

Canadiana Online

Google News Archive​

Prince George Newspapers Project 1909-2009

Multi-Cultural Canada

​Squamish History Archives

  • Squamish Review
  • Squamish Times
  • Squamish Advance
  • Squamish Chief

Thompson-Nicola Regional District Library (1882–2014)

  • Clinton Lariat
  • Inland Sentinel
  • Kamloops Daily News
  • Kamloops Daily Sentinel
  • Kamloops News
  • Kamloops Sentinel
  • Kamloops Standard
  • Kamloops Standard-Sentinel
  • Kamloops This Week
  • Merritt Herald
  • Merritt News
  • Sun Peaks Independent news

Victoria Newspapers 1858-1936 (Index only, but some search results have links to page image)

  • Colonist Daily News 
  • Evening Express 
  • The (Daily) Press 
  • Vancouver Daily Evening Post 
  • Victoria Daily Chronicle 
  • Victoria Daily Standard 
  • Victoria Gazette 
  • Victoria Times 
  • Victoria Times & Evening Express

Bill Silver Digital Newspaper Archive 1917-2007

BCRDH Community Newspapers

Student Collections:

British Columbia Institute of Technology – Burnaby

Camosun College

Capilano University – North Vancouver

College of New Caledonia – Prince George

Douglas College  New Westminster

Kwantlen Polytechnic University – Surrey

Langara College – Vancouver

Simon Fraser University – Burnaby

Thompson Rivers University – Kamloops

Trinity Western University – Langley

University of British Columbia, Okanagan – Kelowna

University of British Columbia – Vancouver

University of Northern British Columbia – Prince George

University of the Fraser Valley – Abbotsford

University of Victoria

Miscellaneous Collections:

Eleanor Muehle Newspaper Archive

For Obituary Indexes, transcriptions, and other death/obituary information from historical newspapers, please check out the Obituaries page.​​

Other Free Sites:

Abbotsford

Canterbury

Cassiar

Chilliwack

Duncan

Nanaimo

Port Alberni

Prince Rupert

Quesnel

Salt Spring Island

Summerland

Vancouver​

Victoria

Whistler

White Rock

Subscription or Pay Sites:

Ancestry.com:

There are currently 3 publications available on this site. See all the titles at Ancestry – British Columbia Newspapers

Newspaper Archive:

There are currently 183 publications available on this site. See all the titles at Newspaper Archive – British Columbia

Newspapers.com:

There are currently 184 publications available on this site. See all the titles at Newspapers.com – British Columbia. 

Paper of Record:

There are currently 4 publications available on this site. See the titles at Paper of Record – British Columbia

And Finally:

You might want to check out the British Columbia Genealogical Society site from time to time to see what is available online or otherwise. There are a number of links to many newspaper and obituary collections throughout the province. 

Please note – even more may be available via a local or provincial library where a library card is required.  And of course, there is always microfilm for those that have not been made available online as yet.

For more links for different states, provinces, and countries – please see the Newspaper Links page on this website.

Good Luck and Happy Hunting!

For all Free British Columbia Links, click on the category of interest:

Newspapers
Obituaries
BMD Records
Photos
Yearbooks
Directories

3 replies on “British Columbia Online Historical Newspapers Summary”

Thanks for letting me know. I added it to my database and it will added to my webpage for BC Obits in my next update this year sometime.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *