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The Biography Database
The Biography Database started as a collection of Canadian naval officer entries. It quickly expanded to include British Columbians who have made a name for themselves or who have contributed to the fabric of life in the Province or in the Canadian Arctic. Although a huge range of diversity is represented in the nearly 40,000 entries many interesting groups of individuals can be tracked. The chart below will indicate the current levels of content and growth of the database.
| Classification | 2003 | 2004 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admirals | 451 | 453 | 507 |
| Aircraft people have flown (known) | 803 | 803 | 926 |
| Served in the air force | 537 | 537 | 606 |
| Served in the army | 719 | 721 | 822 |
| Clergy | 420 | 422 | 501 |
| Doctor/Dentist/Medical | 449 | 454 | 1041 |
| Served in Fishermen's Reserve Section | 90 | 90 | 126 |
| Heritage Interpreter | 1,596 | 1,596 | 1,569 |
| Killed-in-Action or Died-on-duty | 386 | 395 | 2,270 |
| Served as Merchant Mariner | 1,186 | 1,266 | 1,481 |
| Served as MLA | 455 | 456 | 439 |
| Served as MP | 318 | 318 | 306 |
| Served as Municipal Councilor | 501 | 506 | 523 |
| Served as Naval Aviator | 1,873 | 1,876 | 2,144 |
| Served as Canadian naval personnel | 13,331 | 13,837 | 24,358 |
| Northwest Passage Transit completed | 124 | 124 | 127 |
| Geographic places named for listed persons | 1,557 | 1,570 | 1,631 |
| Served in RCMP | 71 | 71 | 80 |
| Served in Canadian naval reserves | 4,118 | 4,154 | 10,653 |
| Served in RN | 1,899 | 1,939 | 2,798 |
| Served in RNAS | 356 | 356 | 415 |
| Served in RNCVR | 435 | 435 | 587 |
| Served as captain of a naval vessel | 1,344 | 1,949 | 2,030 |
| Qualified as Upper Yardman | 47 | 47 | 48 |
| USN personnel | 33 | 95 | 127 |
| Female Canadian naval personnel | 323 | 324 | 1,149 |
| Companies | 0 | 0 | 3,751 |
Site News: April 17, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,205 vessel histories (with 15,628 images and 13,173 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
In 2023 the Nauticapedia celebrated the 50th Anniversary of it’s original inception in 1973 (initially it was on 3" x 5" file cards). It has developed, expanded, digitized and enlarged in those ensuing years to what it is now online. If it was printed out it would fill more than 300,000 pages!
My special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into a semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who has proofread thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 11,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.