As many of you are aware, the PGSNYS is currently engaged in a project to digitize some never-before-microfilmed issues of Buffalo’s Polish newspaper, the Dziennik dla Wszystkich (see here for details). 2023 was a banner year for fundraising for the PGSNYS, thanks to individual donations, as well as generous grants of $5,000 from the Permanent Chair of Polish Culture at Canisius University, and $10,000 from the Louis Skalny Foundation of Rochester, New York. These contributions have enabled us to fund two rounds of digitization, which were completed by The Digital Archive Group last year—encompassing 32,256 newspaper pages, at a total cost of $19,999. The newspaper images were provided to us as TIFF files on two external hard drives. Although TIFF files are the industry standard for archival preservation, we will need to convert the image files to JPGs for upload to the NYS Historic Newspapers website.

Here’s a sneak peek at a few of the pages we’ve digitized so far:

As you can see from these examples, the quality of the digital images created directly from the hardcopy far surpasses the quality of the digital images created from microfilm, some examples of which can be seen here. More importantly, these digitized pages of the Dziennik bring to light information about Western New York’s Polish people, businesses, churches, schools, institutions, and events not covered by the mainstream press, including

• local politics and business news,
• church, school, arts and social events,
• bios of leaders and community members,
• birth, marriage, and death notices,
• WWII news on servicemen, editorials, ads for war bonds and recruitment, and
• 1950s Cold War and Labor Movement news.

Now, we need your help to reach our final $12,806.

The Polish Genealogical Society of New York State is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.