Pursuing directory entries

 

                                                                       The Hudson's Bay Downtown Victoria

In-person research has been missing from my life for a while, so when a recent trip offered a chance to see if two places mentioned in a 1948 directory still existed, I dragged my friend off on a walk to find out. We were in Victoria, a place where my mother lived and worked in the late 1940s. I knew that she and her parents had left the UK in 1946. Passenger lists confirmed this part of the family story. They only stayed in Canada for a few years but had intended a permanent move. It was a sojourn that would have lasting consequences for the family. More on that later.

I was happy to track down the Victoria address where my mother was listed as living in the 1948 directory. It was worth the walk. It even looked like the house which currently holds the address would have been the same building as the one in 1948, at least to my eye. You can see it below. 

As we were staying downtown, there was very little walking involved to track down the address of my mother's former place of work. She was a saleswoman at Hudson's Bay. That building still stands on Douglas Street. I'm sure there have been a lot of changes since she worked there but it was a kick to see the building and translate the directory entry into reality.

Finding the places where my mother had been all those years ago, reminded me that her parents were in Canada at the same time. I just didn't know where. Perhaps it's time to check some directories to see if I can find their whereabouts for the same time period. The search this time could be done online, not trawling through the directories in the Vancouver Library's Special Collections where I had found the entry for my mother so many years ago. But were they in Winnipeg, where my grandmother's sisters lived or in Vancouver, closer to their daughter? 

An internet search brought up a few places to search like the Can Genealogy site at https://www.cangenealogy.com › manitoba-directories or, if looking for Vancouver addresses, I could look through https://bccd.vpl.ca › index.php › browse › title › 1948 Many sites give access to Canadian directories for free and many are searchable by surname which would be a plus except the name I'm searching is Chambers which brings up all sorts of government and other types of chambers. I'll see how I get on.