Skip to Main Content

Research Guides

Discover Archives

SearchTips for Discover Archives - finding archival records (primary sources) at U of T

Provincial and territorial archives discovery networks

You can search across other archives institutions archival descriptions in provincial and territorial databases.

Like Discover Archives, these portals represent the archival holdings across multiple institutions. To access the archives or get reproduction information you will need to contact the specific archival institution responsible for the records. Note that an archives may be listed in the directory per provincial database but not all of their archival descriptions will be found in the database. Instead, you can use the directory page in each portal to navigate to a specific institution's discovery database. 

In most cases, these discovery portals are funded and maintained by provincial archives associations through government funding. They also all use the same database platform - Access to Memory, or AtoM - as Discover Archives. This means that the search guidance for Discover Archives in this guide can also help you search for archival records in these databases. 

Government of Canada, Provincial, and Territorial Archives

Library and Archives Canada - https://library-archives.canada.ca/eng

Archives of Manitoba - https://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/

Archives of Ontario - https://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/index.aspx

Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec - https://www.banq.qc.ca/

Northwest Territories Archives - https://www.nwtarchives.ca/

Nova Scotia Archives - https://archives.novascotia.ca/

Nunavut Archives Program - https://gov.nu.ca/culture-and-heritage/information/archives

Provincial Archives of Alberta - https://provincialarchives.alberta.ca/

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick - https://archives.gnb.ca/archives/?culture=en-CA

Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador - https://www.therooms.ca/collections-research

Public Archives and Records Office Prince Edward Island - https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/topic/libraries-and-archives

Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan - https://www.saskarchives.com/

Royal BC Museum https://www.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/

Yukon Archives - https://yukon.ca/archives

Other archives in Toronto

There are many other archives in Toronto. See the Ontario provincial network, Archeion, for a list of other archives located in Toronto

Aggregated archival discovery networks

When trying to locate where archives are located for a person or organization, it can be helpful to search through databases that aggregate archival descriptions. Note that these aggregators can be helpful to search across archival institutions, but may not contain all archival descriptions that an institution has. 

  • Social Networks and Archival Context (SNAC) portal
    • SNAC is a free, online resource that helps users discover biographical and historical information about persons, families, and organizations that created or are documented in historical resources (primary source documents) and their connections to one another. Users can locate archival collections and related resources held at cultural heritage institutions around the world.
  • Archives Canada portal
    • Archives Canada aggregates descriptions from the provincial and territorial discovery databases. While it is a valuable database to search across Canadian archives, Archives Canada is in the midst of being updated by the Canadian Council of Archives and has not been updated in some time. It is best to refer to the provincial and territorial discovery databases, listed at the top of this page, instead.
chat loading...