I have traced my ancestors back a bit further, my great x9 grandfather (Killiaen Van Rensselaer) was a director on the Amsterdam board of the Dutch West Indies company. They were the ones who ran the trading centres in New Netherland (what Delaware, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Long Island, Manhattan and most of New York state were called until Governor Nichols arrived with three British Man-O’-War (or equivalents in 1664) and offered them the choice between accepting the sovereignty of the Prince of York (along with freedom of religion, trade, and ability to go home if wanting) or have their homes destroyed, their goods seized, their women raped, the usual routine at that time.
The Dutch, unlike the British, Spanish or Portuguese, never just planted their flag and therein claimed or seized land. They bought all the land they later occupied from the indigenous people and, as a result, were always supported and defended by the Mohawks and other tribes of the Iroquois Nation.
Although Killiaen never visited New Netherland personally, he purchased enough land from the Iroquois to build a colony of about one million acres. His son Jeremias ran the colony till his death. Jeremias had two sons who split the (now British manor) with Killiaen keeping title and the major share and gave the Claverack area to the control of his younger brother Hendrick. Hendricks two oldest daughters were married to two Ten Broecks brothers, two generations later the grandchildren of those two pairings (Maj. John C. Ten Broeck and Annetje Ten Broeck) married after the Revolutionary War finished. Their daughter, Anne Van Schaick Ten Broeck married gentleman breeder of rare cattle, Thomas Hillhouse. Their daughter Sarah married Amos Perry, comptroller city of Troy. They had many children, their son, James, after graduation from the Rensselaer polytechnic was commissioned in the US Navy were he started as an engineer doing blockade duty on the Rappahanock during the Civil War, which interestingly, was were his future wife Ella Brooke resided at Brooke’s Bank, a colonial ferry station on that river that had been twice hit by cannon ball during the war, the concussion of one loosened the cover of a secret compartment were the original velum deed signed by the King of England resided. James ended up as head of steam engineering and was buried at Arlington. His son, John Stone Perry, my mother’s father, also graduated from Rensselaer polytechnic but used his math skills learned there to work as an actuarial for an insurance company in San Francisco. He married the daughter of the attorney general of the Utah territories, Talma Breeden, whose brother Roscoe delivered J. C. Penny his first typewriter by stagecoach. John and Talma had two daughters, my mother Ann and her little sister Sarah.