My interest started from a document my father had which is a commission as a Lieutenant in the New York State Militia for John Van Orden dated 1811 (I still have it). He is my 3-g grandfather. I became more interested because there is an excellent genealogy library (Sutro) in San Francisco, and the ease of recording ancestors with PAF (goodbye fan charts!) I wish my parents had lived long enough to learn that that they are directly though distantly relate in two lines (De Grauw and Van Noorstrandt). Frank Van Orden