Anchors Away!: Apolonia (Wykowski) Gonsewski's Journey

I often wonder what sailing across the ocean to a new life in the United States was like for my ancestors. I have read about it, but it is still hard to imagine. Leaving family and friends behind, each one embarked on a journey to "the new country."

In 1899, my great-grandmother Apolonia Wykowski (you can see a photo of her in my previous post) first had to travel from her birthplace, Stara Kubra (which means Old Kubra), in northeastern Poland to the port of Hamburg, Germany. The Polish ports of Gdansk (Danzig) and Szczecin (Stettin) were primarily freight ports, so most Polish emigrants traveled by train to Hamburg or Bremen, Germany. Once there, Apolonia boarded a ship, the SS Pennsylvania, and departed on May 21st for the two week voyage across the ocean. She arrived in the port of New York on June 2nd, coming in to the United States through Ellis Island.

Ship image of the SS Pennsylvania

I found the ship list for Apolonia by using the Ellis Island database. Sometimes names are not indexed the way you would think: for example, I had always been told that Apolonia's first name was Pauline. This is actually the American translation of her name. I also thought Wykowski was the only spelling of the name at first. Then I learned that Wykowska is the female version of Wykowski. Another good online resource to search for your ancestors' ship manifests is Stephen Morse's One-Step pages for searching the Ellis Island records. I like to use the gold form. Make sure that you register for a free account on the Ellis Island website first, so you can sign in and see the ship manifests once you do a search. If you are a paid subscriber to Ancestry, there is another one-step form that you can use that will take you into the Ancestry website to see your search results.

I have included an image of Apolonia's ship list from Ellis Island below.

*Hint: To get a close-up view of the ship lists or other images I post, just click on the image and then right click on it when it opens up and select "open in a new tab." Once it opens in a new tab, you should be able to zoom in and out and be able to read what's written on the image.

Ship manifest for Apolonia Gonszewski (maiden name: Wykowski)

Ship List Information (NY Passenger Lists, see line #21):

Name: Apolona Wicoska
Arrival Date: 2 Jun 1899
Birth Year: abt 1879
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Marital Status: Single
Last Residence: Kubri
Ethnicity/Race­/Nationality: Russian (Polish)
Port of Departure: Hamburg
Port of Arrival: New York, New York
Ship Name: Pennsylvania

Since it says she is 20 years old, her birth year may have been 1879. Her occupation is listed as "none." It states that she can read and write. Her nationality (Polish)  is written lightly and then "Russian" is written in a darker pen because Poland did not exist at the time. Her "last residence" is listed as Kubri (which we figured out is Kubra - her birthplace was Stara Kubra, meaning Old Kubra). She arrived in New York but her "final destination" is N. Millport (most likely New Millport, Pennsylvania). It also is noted that Apolonia did not have tickets to her final destination, that she she paid for her passage herself, she had $5 in her possession, and she had never been in the U.S. before. Finally, it says that she was going to her cousin. His name is difficult to read, but it might say Eric Ptak, 116 Logan Street. (This cousin's name may give us a clue in the future when we try to trace her roots in Poland.)

Finding a ship manifest can be a great clue to your ancestor's town or village in Europe. Unfortunately, I have not found manifests for all of my great-grandparents. But I have found several of them. The Ellis Island web site only has manifests of ships that came in to New York. Ancestry's web site is a good place to search the other ports such as Baltimore.