When my genealogical research began, my first inclination was to focus on my Y chromosome and surname. While researching the arrival of my 7th great-grandfather from the Spanish Netherlands, I noticed his wife’s maiden name was Rapalje. I found the name interesting but was more interested in my direct male ancestor.
Years later, I returned to my immigrant roots and took another look at my Rapalje 7th great-grandmother. I asked myself where and when she was born and who her parents were. I knew Michael van der Voort married Marretje Rapalje in 1640, and Michael left the Spanish Netherlands near the end of the long Dutch Revolt[1] and in the middle of the Thirty Years War[2]. I also discovered that the birthplaces of both Michael and Marretje’s fathers are about 60 miles away in the southern part of the Spanish Netherlands.
Why did Marretje’s parents, a young French-speaking Walloon couple (they probably also spoke some Dutch because many in the area were bilingual) from the Hainaut region of the Spanish Netherlands, agree to take a long sea voyage in the service of the Dutch West India Company? I believe the couple left the Spanish Netherlands in 1624 for the same reason Michael van der Voort left in 1640. The chaos of the Dutch Revolt and the lack of economic opportunities gave them ample motivation to leave Europe. Additionally, the Southern part of the Spanish Netherlands contained more Catholics, and they were Protestant Walloons.
To my surprise, Marretje’s parents are known as the “Adam and Eve of New Netherland” despite being French-speaking Walloons, not Dutch. Unlike my van der Voort line, which moved to the Maryland Colony, most of my Rapalje family remained in New York after the British assumed control, and their descendants intermarried with nearly every Dutch family over the next 200 years. Like my original van der Voort name, the Rapalje name has many variations. Among them are Rapalie, Rapelye, Rapelje, Rapalee, Rapelyea, Rapeleye, etc.
Joris Janssen Rapalje and Catalina Trico were married in 1624 at the Walloon[3] Church of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Four days later, the young couple left Amsterdam on a ship to New Netherland to work for the Dutch West India Company. Their first assignment was at Fort Orange (Fort Oranje), the first permanent Dutch settlement in New Netherland. Fort Orange was named after the House of Orange-Nassau, founded by the first William of Orange, William the Silent (more about him later.) Fort Orange was settled as a trading post with the Native Americans before New Amsterdam (New York City.) Fort Orange later became the City of Albany. While at Fort Orange, they welcomed the first European child born in what is now New York, their daughter Sarah, into the world. Because of conflicts with Native Americans, they were forced to relocate to New Amsterdam on the tip of Manhattan Island after about two years.
In 1637, Joris Rapalje’s family bought 350 acres from the Canarsie Tribe at Waal-Bocht (also called Wallabout and Wallon Bay), the current location of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Joris was a member of the Council of Twelve Men and a Brooklyn magistrate. Joris died in 1663 while attending church in the Dutch Reformed Church of Brooklyn. His wife, Catalina, lived another 26 years and bore at least 11 children. Her account of the early days of New Netherlands is one of the few surviving firsthand records. She was said to be 83 years old at the time of her disposition given to William Morris, the Justice of the Peace, in October 1688. The adventures of Joris and Catalina are also mentioned in several books and articles.[4]
Among the descendants of Joris and Catalina are:
- Cornelius (Commodore) Vanderbilt – 4th great-grandson (WikiTree match Rapalje-19 and Vanderbilt-1)
- 6th Governor of New York, Charles Dewitt Clinton – 4th great-grandson (WikiTree match Rapalje-19 and Clinton-145)
- Wilbur and Orville Wright – 7th great-grandsons (WikiTree match Rapalje-19 and Wright-4)
- Humphrey Bogart – 8th great-grandson (WikiTree match Rapalje-19 and Bogart-6)
- Leland Vandiver – an 8th great-grandson[5] (WikiTree match Rapalje-19 and Vandiver-657)
- Tara VanDerveer – 9th great-granddaughter (Tara lacks a public WikiTree ID and she is still alive)
[1] The Dutch Revolt, 1985, by Geoffrey Parker.
[2] The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy, 2011, by Peter H. Wilson.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloons
[4] The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto, 2005, Vintage, New York.
[5] Humphrey Bogart and I are both Joris Rapalje’s 8th grandsons. Since Bogart was born almost 50 years before me, how could we be in the same generation? The answer lies in the average generation length (AGL) statistic. The AGL between Joris and Humphrey is 26.8, while my corresponding number is 31.3.