Stefen Ramik & Piotr Gemsa---Fellow Travelers to America, Detained at Ellis Island

Stefen Ramik, my great-grandfather, immigrated from western Europe to America in 1904. He traveled with a family member named "Piotr Gemsa". The Gemza family was his mother's family. I don't yet know exactly who Peter is, but I believe that Stanley and Walter Gemza were his 1st cousins. Peter Gemza may be his uncle, since at the time of their travel Stefen was only 17 but Peter was 32 (my current age!).

Here is the record of their departure from Hamburg, Germany. Their names are about 1/3 of the way down.





Here is the record of their arrival in New York City. Actually, this may not be the only document. This is a record of "detained alien passengers". In those days they detained people at the port of entry if they didn't have enough money to get themselves to a destination within the states. The symbol "Tel $" means that a telegram has been sent to their relatives requesting money so they could purchase fare to get to their final destination. They didn't just let people off the boat to wander around with nowhere to go. They apparently only wanted to let in people who would be taken care of or received by someone.

Stefen Ramik and Piotr Gemsa were detained for this very reason. They were to be retrieved by the "Polish Society".

This website explains it: http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/Manifests/detained/

Here is an interesting video from the History Channel that showed what it was like to stay overnight for detainees:
http://www.history.com/topics/ellis-island/videos/detained-at-ellis-island?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false

Finally, here is the actual document. Their names are at the top:



As I alluded to above, I'm going to keep searching for the standard passenger arrival log.