Images of My Family's Immigration

Can I just say how cool it is to find my great-great-grandparents and a few great-great-aunts on the Alien Passenger list for the S. S. Laurentian (May, 1904).

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These lists have so much detail, I can learn that:

My great-grandfather was already here, and his sister listed his home as her destination. She also said she had $7.50 in her possession.

My great-grandmother was not on the boat (why? was she already married to my great-grandfather and in the U.S. by then? needs more investigation), but her parents and sisters were on the boat and listed another of the siblings as their destination. Between the 4 of them they had $20.

My great-grandmother's parents and sisters are shown as Irish under "race or people" yet we have never claimed any Irish in our family.

One of the questions on the form was whether each individual was in possession of $50, and if less, how much. I wonder why.

Interested in seeing when your ancestors came to the U.S., and under what circumstances? Ancestry.com has the goods -- passenger lists from 19th and early 20th centuries. Plus they have census records, which are also simply fascinating.