Records Storage and Property History

Vault Records Inventory

In early 2005, LTSA committed to undertake a detailed inventory of the historic records in LTSA’s custody. By the end of the inventory process, more than 3,300 entries had been reviewed and recorded. The historic records inventory database is 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 labelled with its unique inventory number.

The inventory of the paper format historic records of the seven original Land Title Offices and the Surveyor General is essentially complete. An overview of progress as of March 2013 provides the outside date range and the physical extent of the main land title record series captured in the inventory, as well as an inventory description for each.

Inventory updates continue to occur on an ongoing basis.

Storage of Records

LTSA’s New Westminster vault houses historic records from the Vancouver and New Westminster land title districts.
LTSA’s Victoria vault houses Victoria, Kamloops, Nelson, Prince George, and Prince Rupert land title district historic records.
LTSA’s Victoria and New Westminster vaults have been custom designed to store and conserve historical records, including fire and flood damage mitigation.
DocuWare, the document management software LTSA uses to store digital historic records, is accessible by LTSA employees and those with direct access privileges, who have a DocuWare user account, from terminals in the LTSA’s offices.
LTSA is in the process of digitizing approximately 48,000 reels of microfilm. There are approximately 7,000+ reels associated with the Kamloops and Nelson land title districts which were digitized and accessible through DocuWare prior to the duplicate microfilm reels being relocated to Victoria in October 2021.

Records Inventory

The table below provides an overview of the date range and physical extent of the historic land title records of the seven original land title offices. Please note:

It does not identify gaps in records holdings, missing volumes, or other anomalies that are explained in the inventory database that will be made available on this website when completed. For the purpose of this overview, partial volumes are treated as whole volumes.
To date, the historic records inventory has focused on land title records in paper format. Consequently, records that exist only in microform or digital format are not included in this overview. Some of the documents coded as “None Found” may in fact exist on microfilm.
“Ongoing” indicates that the record series was still being created in 2008. The plus (+) sign following a quantity of plans indicates that the number is approximate because the series is ongoing.

	Victoria	New Westminster	Vancouver	Prince Rupert	Prince George	Kamloops	Nelson
Inclusive Years	1860 ongoing	1885 ongoing	1891-1990	1909-2002	1966-2002	1893 ongoing	1901-1997
Record Series Title
Absolute Fees Parcels Book	12 volumes, 1861-1907	10 volumes, 1871-1915	8 volumes, 1871-1905	1 volume, 1874-1906	None Found	6 volumes, 1870-1907	5 volumes, 1881-1906
Bylaw Plans	1012 plans, 1919-1980	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Certificates of Indefeasible Title	5 volumes, 1866-1905	3 volumes, 1884-1954	1 volume, 1905-1913	None Found	None Found	1 tank, 1910-1912	5 dockets, 1914-1923
Charge Parcels Book	8 volumes, 1861-1906	6 volumes, 1870-1905	7 volumes, 1871-1905.	1 volume, 1870-1905	None Found	4 volumes, 1870-1906	2 volumes, 1886-1906
Church Property Plans	31 plans, 1924-1951	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Conveyances	6 volumes, 1861-1870	3 volumes, 1862-1870	None Found	None Found	None Found	9 volumes, 1862-1870	1 volume, 1867 only
Crown Grant Documents	4 tanks of documents, 1920-1980	75 tanks of documents, 1892 ongoing	43 tanks and 42 files of documents, 1872-2001	70 tanks of documents, 1895-2000	156 tanks of documents, 1896-2002	171 tanks of documents, 1893 ongoing	120 tanks, 1896-1997
Deeds Deposited	497 tanks of documents; 1860-1979	1 tank; 1880-1919	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	2 tanks, 1892-1918
Documents Deposited	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Documents Filed	20 tanks of documents, 1862-1971	64 drawers plus 10 records storage boxes of documents, 1920-1959	None Found	2 tanks of documents, ca. 1900-1971	None Found	None Found	2 tanks of documents, 1921-1966
Documents Filed Plans	970 plans, 1929-1967	49 tanks, 1929-1987	187 tanks, 1887-1991	12 tanks of plans, 1912-1971	None Found	ca. 1080 plans, 1899-1966	11 tanks of plans, ????-1966
General Plan Series	79430+ plans, 1861 ongoing	170300+ plans, 1878 ongoing	22800 plans, 1882-1991	74000 plans, 1915-1997	ca. 35500 plans, 1909-2002	25 tanks of plans, 39000 plans, also those in a blended series, 1914 ongoing	None Found
Highway Plans	Filed in Right-of-Way Plan series	None Found	182 plans, 1953-1978; effective 1979, filed in Explanatory & Reference Plan series	Inventory in Progress	250 plans, plus those in Running Number Series, 1948-1994	954 plans, 1947-1967; plus series plans in a blended series, 1967-1985	374 plans, 1931-1975
Indian Reserve Plans	79 plans, 1876-1934	None Found	1 plan, 1916	None Found	2 plans, ????-1964	None Found	None Found
Key Plans	1351 plans, 1914-1946	1675 plans, ????-1981	4 map books and 324 plans, 1914-1985	None Found	None Found	1 volume, ????-????	154 plans and 1 volume, 1914-1953
Official Survey Plans	796 plans, 1909-1980	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Posting Plans	4370 plans, 1965-1980	930 plans, 1991 only; effective 1992, filed in General Plan Series	122 tanks, 1937-1991	None Found	None Found	Part of approx. 2800 plans, 1966-1987, after which filed in General Plan Series	None Found
Railway and Foreshore Plans	None Found	None Found	19954 plans, 1907-1990	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Railway Plans	None Found	None Found	None Found	ca. 73 plans, 1903-1960	None Found	ca. 300 plans, 1913-1955	None Found
Record of Agreements and Miscellaneous Instruments	3 volumes, 1870-1921	None Found	4 volumes, 1884-1932	None Found	None Found	2 volumes, 1870-1893	1 volume, 1888-1900
Record of Conveyances	2 volumes, 1870-1921	2 volumes, 1870-1920	2 volumes, 1871-1907	None Found	None Found	7 volumes, 1862-1910	2 volumes, 1877-1920
Record of Mortgages	2 volumes, 1870-1919	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	1 volume, 1870-1893	2 volumes, 1867-1899
Reference and Explanatory Plans	None Found	ca. 17460 plans, 1911-1960	ca. 20650 plans, 1911-1991	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Reference Plans	2089 plans, 1936-1980	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	ca. 1760 plans as part of a blended series, 1967-1985	None Found
Register of Absolute Fees	38 volumes, 1861-2003	55 volumes, 1871-2001	32 volumes, 1870-1919	3 volumes, 1874-1990	1 volume, 1894-1950	19 volumes, 1870-1991	19 volumes, 1881-2006
Register of Charges	34 volumes, 1861-2000	25 volumes, 1870-2004	45 volumes, 1871-1998	3 volumes, 1870-1990	1 volume, 1912 only	11 volumes, 1870-1991	8 volumes, 1886-2006
Register of Indefeasible Fees	11 volumes, 1905-1914	15 volumes, 1905-1915	19 volumes, 1905-1917	6 volumes, 1905-1915	1 volume, 1906-1913	7 volumes, 1905-1920	3 volumes, 1905-1922
Register of Mortgages	2 volumes, 1861-1870	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	7 volumes, 1861-1920	None Found
Right-of-Way and Easement Plans	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	ca. 600 plans, 1914-1966	part of blended series, 1914-1985	None Found
Right-of-Way Plans	3480 plans, 1913-1980	6 plans, dates not yet determined	None Found	None Found	850 plans, 1916-1966	ca. 3260 plans, 1916-1985	642 plans, 1938-1975
Satisfaction Book	7 volumes, 1861-1911	None Found	10 volumes, 1876-1911	None Found	None Found	5 volumes, 1878-1912	5 volumes, 1888-1912
Strata Plans	5846+ plans, 1968 ongoing	10111+ plans, 1968 ongoing	2893 plans, 1968-1991	100+ plans, 1970-2001	356 plans, 1974-2002	318+ plans, 1970 ongoing	231 plans, 1974-1997
Subdivision Plans	None Found	None Found	None Found	3 plans, 1914 only	None Found	ca. 36000 plans, 1893-1985	ca. 20850 plans, 1885-1997
Supplemental Charge Book	1 volume, 1861-1870	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found
Supplemental Charges Parcels Book	1 volume, 1861-1870	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found	None Found

Property History

The table below provides a sense of the information contained in the variety of historic land title records in which land transactions were documented.

The documents from 1870 to 1894 included here reveal only part of the story of the land amassed by Henry Elliott and transferred in 1894 to his wife Ellen Elliott.

For the present purpose, it would be too complicated to include the earlier documents relating to the whole of the property to which Mrs. Elliott was listed as the absolute fee owner from 14 February 1894. The documents from 1906 to 1912 relate specifically to Lot 15, Block XXXVI, City of New Westminster, and show the history of transactions relating to Lots 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Tenth Street, between Queens Avenue and Auckland Street, during those years.

For illustrative purposes only, digital scans have been cropped to exclude non-relevant transactions and pasted together to present each transaction as a single image where a transaction spans two pages.

Please note that this is not a definitive title search, rather a representation to show the inter-relationships between record series.

Records Source	Date	Brief Description of Documented Transactions	Image
W, Conveyance Book vol. 2, folios 181 and 182, no. 2263	30 May 1870	On 30 May 1870, the Indenture from Henry Bruce to Henry Elliott, dated 24 May 1870 and conveying certain lands in the District of New Westminster, was deposited for registration at the Land Registry Office. That document explains that Henry Elliott had paid Henry Bruce $150 to purchase 150 acres of land.	1
NW, Crown Grant 15465F	3 November 1874	Henry Elliott acquired a further 44 acres in New Westminster District by Crown grant from the provincial Crown dated 3 November 1874. He paid $49.50 for the surface rights, with gold and silver ore explicitly reserved to the Crown. The Crown Grant originally numbered 1463 was signed by Lieutenant-Governor Joseph W. Trutch in the top right-hand corner, by Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works Robert Beaven, beneath the coat of arms, and by Provincial Secretary John Ash at the bottom. The sketch attached to the Crown grant highlights in red the parcel conveyed to Henry Elliott, showing that Section Twenty-eight (28), Block Five (5) North, Range Four (IV) West, New Westminster District, is along the North Arm of the Fraser River. Again, the sketch is signed Robert Beaven, CCLW. The annotation on the reverse of the Crown grant shows that it was deposited at the Land Registry Office and registered on 14 February 1894 in Absolute Fees Book, volume 19, folio 155 as part of absolute fee 480F. The Crown Grant was just one of the long list of instruments submitted that continued over the page.	2, 3, 4, 5, 6
W, Conveyance Book vol. 2, folios 181 and 182, no. 2263	30 May 1870	On 30 May 1870, the Indenture from Henry Bruce to Henry Elliott, dated 24 May 1870 and conveying certain lands in the District of New Westminster, was deposited for registration at the Land Registry Office. That document explains that Henry Elliott had paid Henry Bruce $150 to purchase 150 acres of land.	1
NW, Crown Grant 15465F	3 November 1874	Henry Elliott acquired a further 44 acres in New Westminster District by Crown grant from the provincial Crown dated 3 November 1874. He paid $49.50 for the surface rights, with gold and silver ore explicitly reserved to the Crown. The Crown Grant originally numbered 1463 was signed by Lieutenant-Governor Joseph W. Trutch in the top right-hand corner, by Chief Commissioner of Lands and Works Robert Beaven, beneath the coat of arms, and by Provincial Secretary John Ash at the bottom. The sketch attached to the Crown grant highlights in red the parcel conveyed to Henry Elliott, showing that Section Twenty-eight (28), Block Five (5) North, Range Four (IV) West, New Westminster District, is along the North Arm of the Fraser River. Again, the sketch is signed Robert Beaven, CCLW. The annotation on the reverse of the Crown grant shows that it was deposited at the Land Registry Office and registered on 14 February 1894 in Absolute Fees Book, volume 19, folio 155 as part of absolute fee 480F. The Crown Grant was just one of the long list of instruments submitted that continued over the page.	2, 3,4 5, 6
NW, AFB vol. 19, folios 155 and 157, no. 480F NW, AFPB, vol. 10, folio 634, no. 480F	14 February 1894	On 14 February 1894, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, Ellen Elliott was registered as the absolute fee owner of a whole list of property within the City of New Westminster, including Lot 15, Block XXXVI, referred to below in later documents. The Parcels Book column indicates that a description of the property was entered in the Absolute Fees Parcels Book. At the bottom of the List of Instruments column, we learn that Ellen Elliott had received the lands described in the Parcels (Short Description) column from her husband Henry Elliott by conveyance in fee dated 10 February 1894.	7,8
NW, IFB vol. 1, folio 104, no. 8999F	29 August 1906	On 29 August 1906, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, Elizabeth Hembrough was registered as the indefeasible fee owner of Lots 1 and 2 by conveyance dated 20 August 1906 from Charles Stephen Vaughan Branch.	9
NW, plan 969	1 May 1907	On 1 May 1907, a plan of the subdivision of Lot 15, Block XXXVI, City of New Westminster, was deposited in the New Westminster Land Registry Office. The plan, showing Lots 1, 2, 3, and 4 on Tenth Street between Queens Avenue and Auckland Street, was certified and signed by British Columbia Land Surveyor William Nelson Draper. New Westminster Mayor W.H. Keary signed the plan to certify that conditions 1, 2, and 3 of section 68 of the Land Registry Act had been complied with. Among the other annotations on the plan is the signature of Mrs. E. Hembrough.	10
NW, CB vol. 16, folio 101, no. 7699C	2 November 1907	On 2 November 1907, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, James O’Halloran was registered as the owner of a charge against Lot 2 (only) by mortgage in fee 30 October 1907 from Elizabeth Hembrough. The information annotated within the red-ink rubber stamp indicates that the charge was cancelled on 24 March 1911 and entered in the New Westminster Satisfaction Book, vol. 3, folio 455 (that volume no longer exists).	11
NW, CB vol. 19, folio 114, no. 13460F	26 April 1910	On 26 April 1910, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, Lewis Charles and Joseph Reid were registered as the owners of a charge against Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 by agreement for sale and purchase dated 7 March 1910 from Elizabeth Hembrough.	12
NW, CB vol. 19, folio 114, no. 13598F	7 May 1910	On 7 May 1910, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, David K. Newell was registered as the owner of a charge against Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 by agreement for sale and purchase dated 11 April 1910 from Charles Lewis and Joseph Reid, pursuant to the agreement for sale and purchase dated 7 March 1910 from Elizabeth Hembrough to Charles Lewis and Joseph Reid.	13
NW, IFB vol. 8, folio 5, no. 31975F	12 August 1912	On 12 August 1912, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, Lewis Charles and Joseph Reid were registered as the indefeasible fee owners of Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 by conveyance dated 12 September 1911 from Elizabeth Hembrough.	14
NW, IFB vol. 8, folio 6, no. 31976F	13 August 1912	On 13 August 1912, at New Westminster Land Registry Office, David K. Newell was registered as the indefeasible fee owner of Lots 1, 2, 3 and 4 by conveyance dated 12 September 1911 from Joseph Reid and Charles Lewis (by his attorney Joseph Reid) .	15

Sample Property History - Image Gallery

In the section below, you can see a set of historic records examples. In these photos, a digital scan of a typical page for seven different record series shows the type of information each contains.

Historic Record Samples

This selection of document images was made on the basis of a typical search to trace the ownership of a particular piece of land and includes the major record series.