Polish Genealogical Society of Michigan - PGSM
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Halicki Travel Papers - 1910 - 1933
Ticket No. 3700; purchased 28 June (191)9 by August Wrobel of 412 Norwalk, in the amount of $20.00/250 marks; purchased for Sofia
Wrobel in Straszydle, post office Tyczyn, pow(iat) or district of Rzeszów, Gal(icia), Polska (Poland); signed by W. Halicki.
In the 1880s, Straszydle had 333 dwellings and 1,530 inhabitants (1,496 Roman Catholics, 4 Greek Catholics, and 30 Jews), according
to the Slownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego (Polish Gazetteer). The Roman Catholics in Straszydle attended services at the
parish of St. Ursula (established 1392) in Lubenia. The LDS Family History Library (FHL) has one film of Roman Catholic births and
deaths for Lubenia, covering the years 1809-1850.
By Kathleen LaBudie-Szakall: From 1910 to 1935, Walter Halicki operated a travel agency from his home on Chene Street in Detroit.
His main business was selling steamship tickets for passage to and from Europe, along with real estate sales, loans, foreign exchange,
money orders and notary public duties. Fortunately for Polonia, his son Arthur preserved his father's business files.
This
gold mine of information consists primarily of over 80,000 prepaid steamship tickets. They are a resource that PGSM has sought
for some time, to make more widely available for research. While many of the records contain specific ancestral information,
their extremely fragile condiition made access by researchers impossible. It is estimated that 85 percent of the passenger tickets
concern travel to/from Poland. The other 15 percent cover 12 other countries, including Russia, Italy, Lithuania, Latvia, Yugoslavia and
Estonia.
The collection also contains receipts for money transfers, home insurance receipts, and cash receipts. The
receipts for prepaid travel are the most likely to have genealogical interest to us because of the ancestral village information.
The
collection consists of 45 Hollinger boxes arranged in 2 series, which comprise a total of 56 volumes: 19 ticket books, 22 receipt
books, 5 cable order books and 8 money order books. There are 32 extra large volumes of ticket books and one refund register.
Nearly
the entire collection has been microfilmed for use by researchers, but the unindexed material makes it virtually useless by researchers.
The collection was originally organized numerically rather than alphabetically so there is no way to locate any reference to any surname.
A finding aid is necessary and required for use. In an effort to create a finding aid, a portion of the microfilm has been transferred
to microfiche for the indexing project.
It is now up to the PGSM to index these papers so researchers can utilize this invaluable
tool. We need your help.
Project Manager Kathleen LaBudie-Szakall has begun distributing microfiche and forms to volunteers
for indexing. To date 49 volunteers forindexing. They have offered to index 194 microfiche. This is a very worthwhile
project in which our long distance members can participate. We will send you, via U.S. mail system, the necessary index form,
with full instructions, and a fiche or two, or three (each fiche contains 70 ticket images). The fiche can be viewed on any
microfiche reader; most public libraries and all LDS/Mormon Family History Centers have microfiche readers available for patron use.
More
volunteers are definitely needed. We have along way to go. Pleae consider participating. If you would like to receive
information about participating in the indexing project, contact PGSM by email to Project Manager Kathleen LaBudie-Szakall at: labuszkl@earthlink.net .
Once
we have a larger amount of extarctions, we will place these on the web site as a searchable index
This page under is construction
