Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1161926
14 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 1 SEPTEMBER 2019 NEWS ENTER a world of historical wonder: just over 60,000 passport documents spanning the period from the 1880s to 1938, with passport photos from 1915, can be accessed digitally through the Archivesportaleurope.net. Did great- grandma and great-grandad honey- moon in Italy? The chances are that their photo was presented together with their passport before boarding a cruise liner to usual ports of destina- tion such as Sicily and Italy, or Tunis and then Marseilles, or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. These passports – MaltaToday is fea- turing some illustrious names in Mal- tese history – were only saved from be- coming carnival papier-mâché just over 25 years ago when they were discovered lying around Fort St Elmo. The introduction of the photo and de- tailed descriptors of the passport hold- er (before 1915 birth certificates signed by a parish priest sufficed) were intro- duced by the British government after German spy Carl Hans Lody faked a US passport to enter Britain. The digitisation of the passport pho- tos was carried out by employees of the National Archives, among them Steph- anie Schembri and Mary Buttigieg, who dedicated hundreds of hours to a da- tabase of over 60,000 names and pass- port applications from the late 1880s to 1938. The Maltese-Australian 'virtual vol- unteer' Mark Caruana also supported the National Archives by providing a cataloguing process and transferring digitised passport data onto the data- base: on Geneanum.com his database can be accessed to search these pass- ports by name and surname, place of residence, or even occupation. MaltaToday's data analysis managed to glean some fascinating details about this sample of passports: for exam- ple, most of these travellers described themselves as 'labourers' (6,200) and merchants (3,000), as well as house- wives (1,800), seamen and naval offic- ers, naturally enough (3,100), clerks (1,400) and soldiers (1,000). Labourers, farmers, farmhands and similar manual occupations were more prone to travel to countries of migra- tion like Australia, the USA, or the UK; but Italy was more of a draw for mer- chants and traders on business and priests – either for tourism purposes, or for health reasons. Indeed, we found over 20,000 trav- ellers heading to Italy, and another 19,000 heading to Tunisia – possibly for migration but also en route to other ports, such as France, chosen by 15,000 travellers as their destination. And the most common surnames? Borg of course, followed by Vella and Camilleri. Sliema also seemed to produce mostly clerks and merchants; Floriana and Valletta's main travellers were mer- chants. But Cospicua's travellers were mainly seamen, while Gozo and Ham- run's travellers were mostly labourers. Passports, please Prime Ministers: Enrico Mizzi (top left) travels to 'Italia, Francia and Ingilterra' with his wife Bice in 1931 for 'salute & sports' (health); Gerald Strickland (top right) goes to England in 1921; and left and right, two passports for Ugo Mifsud, one in 1928 and the other in 1932 Prelates and polemicists: the writer, journalist and intellectural Juan Mamo is given leave to travel Europe for 'touring' in 1930 - his name is given as John B. Mamo; top right, Mgr Carmelo Psaila, or national poet Dun Karm Psaila, is planning 'useful recreation' in Italy, Switzerland and France in 1925; and (left) Bishop Michael Gonzi lists an impressive number of possible destinations in 1933 including Europe, the British empire, Egypt, Syria and Palestine