After I returned to New York I spent much time on genealogy.
The Bogarts, my father's mother's ancestors and the neighbors who married into the family arrived in New Amsterdam from 1623 to 1660 and the family lived on Long Island till about 1820 when my great-grandfather, Helmus Bogart, who spoke only Dutch till he was seven years old, drove a team to Cincinnati and with his family settled there.
Most of these ancestors were Dutch and French, many of them Huguenots, who came to America for religious freedom; they had interesting backgrounds, some family histories going back many generations before they sailed on their long journeys over a lonely sea.
Naturally the New York Public Library with its fine genealogy room was an ideal place to trace New York ancestry. Such research requires much time, patience and persistence. However I added about one hundred and forty ancestors' names to my list, and of the forty ancestral families have traced all but half a dozen to the "immigrant ancestor," or beyond.
I already knew that Sarah Rapalje, "the first white female child born in New Netherlands" was my great-great-great-great-great-great (six greats) grandmother, and that her husband, Theunis Ghysbertse Boogaerdt, was one of nine men who founded Brooklyn. But I did not know that her first husband, Hans Hansen Bergen, was also an ancestor. Hans' great-great-great-granddaughter married Theunis' great-great-grandson [Isaac Bogart Sr., Alice's great-great-great grandfather--Alice inadvertently added an extra "great-"; Isaac was Theunis' great-grandson]. Grandmother ([Annetje] Bogart) Holliday was descended from Sarah Rapalje's parents five ways in the course of six generations.
These pioneers, it is said, married within a day's horseback ride from home, because they could go no farther to do their courting and there was little travel.
I also discovered two "lost" wedding dates and found several additional Revolutionary ancestors.