The series consists of civil orders created by the Chilliwack Supreme Court between 1916 and 1946 and 1949 to 1992. The series also consists of a subseries of early reasons for judgement, dating to the 1930s and 1940s. In many cases, these were interfiled with the civil orders. Early civil orders contain adoption information, although later orders appear to have been removed. The series includes divorce records, including decrees nisi and absolute. Reasons for judgement provide the rationale behind a court’s decision, and civil orders are a formal expression of the court’s will.
Records in this series are arranged by volume and folio number. Many of the records were originally housed in shannon folders, and have been rehoused for preservation purposes. When the records were received by the Archives, the volumes were out of order. As it would have been too difficult to re-order the files at the time, they have been left in the received physical order but the file list is arranged by volume number. The records in this series were selected for full retention under the Court Services ORCS (Schedule 100152) number 51400-25.
British Columbia. Supreme Court (Chilliwack)