In early 2005, the LTSA committed to undertake a detailed inventory of the historic records held in the three Land Title Offices located at Victoria, New Westminster, and Kamloops.
As of 2008, the contract archivist conducting the inventory had reviewed and recorded more than 3,300 entries in the historic records inventory database that was designed to produce reports that comply with national archival standards.
Each entry represents either an individual bound volume or a sub-series of documents or plans. Each volume or sub-series inventoried has been labeled with its unique inventory number.
The inventory of the paper format historic records of the seven original Land Title Offices is complete. Work is now underway to develop a similar type of inventory for records of the Surveyor General Division.
An overview of progress as of March 2008 provides the outside date range and the physical extent of the main land title record series captured in the inventory, as well as a functional description for each. A digital scan of a typical page for seven different record series shows the type of information each contains.
When the inventory of land title and surveyor general records is completed, the database will be made available on this website. It will provide a searchable listing of the series of registers, documents, plans, and indices created by the Surveyor General Division, each Land Title Office and their current storage location. It will NOT provide an index to names of individual land owners or parcel descriptions.
Though access to the database will be free of charge, the normal LTSA fees will apply to have historical research conducted in or to obtain photocopies of actual records.
Historic Records Definition
The historic records of the LTSA are among its key assets.
The LTSA's historic records include land title and survey documents, plans, registers, indices, Crown grants, and other operational records that are of enduring value for legal, survey and conveyancing purposes.
In addition to their value for operational purposes, historic records have significant informational and evidential value to local and academic historians, First Nations researchers, genealogists, and other persons involved in historical or land parcel research.
Because they document patterns of provincial land settlement and ownership, from the time of the earliest European settlement to the present, the LTSA's historic records are of provincial historical significance.
To ensure their permanent retention, historic records are securely stored in records vaults in the three Land Title Offices at Victoria, New Westminster and Kamloops, and in the records vault at the Office of the Surveyor General in Victoria.
Historic records are maintained in a number of different media, including paper, microform and digital formats.
