The historian and writer Jason Vanderhill discusses Vancouver history, his piece in Vancouver Confidential (Anvil Press, 2014), his online presence, and more, with Joseph Planta.

Vancouver Confidential edited by John Belshaw (Anvil Press, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Vancouver Confidential

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

The book Vancouver Confidential continues to sell well, and a couple of weeks after its editor John Belshaw was in to talk about it, I’m joined now by Jason Vanderhill, a contributor to the book. His piece entitled, ‘The Daniel Joseph Kennedy Story,’ is a fascinating one that I’ll get him to tell us about. I’ll also ask him about his terrific work chronicling history through his very fine website Illustrated Vancouver, and his Flickr, Instagram and Twitter accounts. His Flickr account alone features several thousand images, some he took, some he recovered, and all now stored electronically there thanks to his keen eye for the artistic and the historic. Very quickly when you get acquainted with his avocation for Vancouver do you see him at the intersection of art and history, pulling us toward aesthetically interesting work, work that remembers who we are, and perhaps gleans some insight into where we’re headed. I’ve asked him to appear on the program to tell us about his piece in Vancouver Confidential, which incidentally is published by Anvil Press, but also about his work as an amateur historian. His work online and elsewhere is really adding to the collective memory that we all should be cultivating. In his pursuit of and showcasing of art and ephemera, he’s quickly become a treasure himself. The website for Illustrated Vancouver is at www.illustratedvancouver.ca. The Twitter is @jmv, whilst the Instagram account is www.instagram.com/jasonvanderhill. And of course the Flickr account can be viewed at www.flickr.com/jmv. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jason Vanderhill; Mr. Vanderhill, good morning.

Links of interest from Jason Vanderhill:

Vancouver Public Library, City Directories (1860-1955): http://www.vpl.ca/bccd/index.php

BC Archives Vital Statistics: http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy/BasicSearch

City of Vancouver Archives, including historic photographs: http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/

VPL Historical Photographs of British Columbia: http://www.vpl.ca/find/cat/C393/

Ancestry.ca Library Edition: (*in the VPL only; otherwise subscription fee)

Newspapers.com (now includes nearly the entire Vancouver Daily World 1888-1924) (*subscription fee)

Heritage Vancouver Society Historical Building Permit Database: http://www.heritagevancouver.org/database.html

UBC Special Collections: http://rbsc.library.ubc.ca/collections/

UBC Chung Collection: http://rbsc.library.ubc.ca/collections/#ChungCollection-3

SFU Special Collections: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/special-collections

SFU Online Postcard Database: http://content.lib.sfu.ca/cdm/landingpage/collection/bcp

Museum of Vancouver Open MOV: http://openmov.museumofvancouver.ca/collection

Police Museum Collection: http://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/collection/

Building and construction data: Emporis.com

Findagrave.com is a good place to start for genealogy, as well as any individual cemetery that may be applicable; the deeper you start to research genealogy, the more resources that become available; M. Diane Rogers has a great list here: http://canadagenealogy.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page_20.html

And don’t forget to look closely at Google, eBay, archive.org, wikipedia, AbeBooks.com, and Alibris.com for artifacts and ephemera once you have some very specific keywords, phrases, and names that you can narrow in on.

Finally, I highly recommend the courses Power Searching and Advanced Power Searching with Google, primarily to familiarize yourself with the various (and often hidden power of search operators). http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/

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