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.

Picturing Grandma: Apolonia (Wykowska) Gonsewski & Her Kids

My father saw his grandmother Apolonia Gonszewski for the first time last week. She would have been 131 years old this year, so he didn't see her in person. Instead, he saw a picture of a framed portrait of her that a long-lost cousin sent me via a text message to my iPhone. Our story is just one more example of how technology is making it easier to connect with family members and trace your roots.

Apolonia Gonszewski (maiden name Wykowski) was born in Stara Kubra in northeastern Poland. 

I first found my second cousin Melanie, the daughter of my dad's cousin Barbara, a year or two ago through Ancestry, a family history website that most people are familiar with now that they advertise on television. I didn't even know Melanie existed because my father had lost touch with her mother over 50 years ago, but she had a small family tree on the website that connected with mine because we both knew the names of our  great-grandmother (Apolonia) and great-grandfather (Konstanty) and their five children. My dad's father Eugene and her mom's mother Melania (also known as Mildred or Millie) were brother and sister. Once we connected and exchanged e-mails, we also "friended" each other on Facebook so we could see photos of each other's children and keep in touch.

Thanks to Facebook, Melanie remembered that I would probably want to see Apolonia's portrait when she saw a post from me. We were visiting Charlotte, North Carolina, and Melanie had just visited there the weekend before that! Too bad we have never been in the same place at the same time and met in person yet, but maybe we will one day .... Melanie had helped her father move out of his house several weeks ago and had found a large framed portrait that her mother, who passed away in 2007, had kept in the house. I don't know if it had been put it up in the attic or had been on display in the house, but this was the first I had heard of it. It turns out that Apolonia's name was written on the back of the portrait along with something that had taken me years of searching for documents to find out for myself - her birthplace. It noted that Apolonia was born in Stara Kubra in northeastern Poland. I am so happy that this fact is now verified :)

My father had lost touch with Melanie's branch of the family way back when he was in high school in Chicago. His father had a falling out with his sisters Mildred and Stephanie (according to my mother who started dating my dad at that time) because he was an alcoholic and they did not want him to come around anymore. Also, it makes sense that my father never saw a photo of his grandmother (or does not remember if he did) because she died in 1924 when his father Eugene was 16 years old.

Apolonia Gonszewski (maiden name Wykowski) was usually called Pauline once she came to the United States. She arrived at Ellis Island on June 2, 1899 at the age of 20. She married my great-grandfather Konstanty on Feb. 14, 1900 in Scranton, Penn.They had their first child there (Bronislaw, who was called Bruno) in November 1901. Family stories tell us that Apolonia and Konstanty left Scranton because Konstanty was injured in a mining accident,although I have not found any documents to back that up. They moved to Chicago sometime before having their second child Boleslaw

Boleslaw (which translates to William) was born in Chicago in January 1904 . The rest of the Gonszewski children were also born in Chicago: Walter in May 1906, Eugene (my dad's father) in August 1908, Melania (Millie or Mildred) in October 1910, and Stefania (Steffie or Stephanie) sometime in 1912 (she is the only one that I have not found a definite date of birth for yet).

Sadly, Boleslaw died of diphtheria in November 1910. How I learned about him and what he died of will be the subject of another post. I had only been told of the five surviving Gonszewski children when I started my genealogy research. I have never seen a photo of Boleslaw, but I did finally get to see a a portrait of the five Gonszewski children for the first time last week, thanks again to cousin Melanie.

We think that this portrait was probably taken in 1912 or 1913 because the baby in the picture is Stephanie. My dad's father Eugene, sitting to the right of the baby, is dressed in a young boy's suit with a full lace collar. He is about 4 or 5 years old. Mildred is about 2 or 3 and the two older brothers, Bruno and Walter, dressed in suits with bow ties, are about 11 or 12 and 6 or 7 respectively.

Children of Konstanty and Apolonia Gonszewski: (From left to right) Bruno and Walter (standing), Melania, Stefania, and Eugene (sitting). Circa 1912-13 

Unfortunately, we also do not have any photos of my great-grandfather Konstanty even though he died much later than Apolonia. Konstanty (who also known as Gustav, at least that was the name listed on his death certificate) was born March 10, 1879 in Stanislawowo (as per his Declaration of Intention, most likely the town by that name that is near Bialystok in northeastern Poland) and died on June 5, 1940 in Bremen Township (Cook County), Illinois after battling pulmonary tuberculosis for 6 months.

Perhaps one day soon we will see a photo of Konstanty. But at least now we can finally hold a picture of Apolonia in our hands.

How to begin?: The Hunt for Your Family History

Ever wonder where you came from? If you're like me, with immigrant ancestors who came to the US in the early 1900s, finding out might be harder than you think.

When my first daughter was born I suddenly wanted to know everything there was to know about our family history. I suppose I knew that I'd better start digging for information if I wanted to be able to tell her where she came from when she was old enough to ask .

Searching for my family history turned out to be as frustrating as hunting for a needle in a haystack, but also as exciting as digging for buried treasure - especially when I actually found something. Over the past 18 years, I've been bitten by the genealogy bug many times and searched for information in between having four children, writing for an Army newspaper, and teaching at a school for dyslexic children.

I've learned a lot about genealogy. Now I want to pass that knowledge on to others who might be starting their own quest for information about their families. I also want to present my own family with all that I've learned and will continue to find about my ancestors. This genealogy blog is dedicated to sharing all the data that I've collected so far (as well as how I found it) with family members and anyone else who might be interested in gleaning a little information on how to find their roots.

So now I want to share everything with you. The only problem is, where to begin? I have so much information that I am not sure how or where or what to begin with. I've decided to "just do it" (to use a line from the old Nike commercials), start with myself (as most genealogists know works best), write about how I got interested in genealogy and then go from there.

As a mother of four growing children, I haven't had the time or the money to pursue my roots (or my husband's roots) as often or to dig as deeply as I have wanted. Our ancestors were all Eastern European, believe it or not, so records have been hard to come by. Early on, I researched records on microfilm in libraries and at our local Family History Center at the LDS Church (now there is FamilySearch - a website with an online catalog and a searchable database with links to many digitized records). Although I couldn't do it all at once, I found out that that's okay. Now, with more and more online genealogy resources and databases becoming available every day, my family tree is growing and growing.

So begins my genealogy blog "Genea in a Tree." I thought of calling it "Genea in a Bottle" because I would really like to have a genie who could help me find my way back in time to discover my ancestors and learn about their lives. I also would love to discover a message in a bottle full of interesting information that one of my great-grandmothers wrote down about the family and sent off in hopes of reaching me right about now. But my son Nick came up with "Genea in a Tree" and I liked it. So thanks, Nick, for naming my blog!

Now imagine me cracking a bottle on the bow of our flagship genealogy project to christen it. And anchors away!