There are stories that go along with them.
The oldest families with roots in the 1500s and 1600s are called The Old American Families ~ just in case you wanted to know what they were called ~ that was what it was.
As you read through the stories you discover that they are ALL multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-racial ~ ALL OF THEM!
What we now call America was from the very foundation a broad mix of people.
That set of books will take you over the breadth of the face of the Earth. But, you can look at other sources ~ even the internet. Some day look up Shodak or Shodack for a start point ~ and maybe a couple of other spellings. That is a name applied to the "county seat" of any Iroquoian or Mohican tribe. There are a dozen or so places with that name.
During a time when Jews weren't allowed in New York City a Jewish woman was shipped out from Amsterdam to New York. They wouldn't let her off the boat at the city (mostly at that time an assemblage of log storehouses) so she had to sail up the Hudson.
They'd let people off at Shodack Landing ~ which was where the Mohicans had been leaving their ancestors bones since 9500 BC.
So, she got off the boat there, and was met by a young man who instantly married her. His own father was Dutch, or maybe Spanish, or maybe some other thing, but his mother was an American Indian from a tribe then living in what is now Connecticut, or maybe the Abenaki.
That is the story of the first Jew known to live in what is now the United States ~ her own children were "whatever" ~ but they are like the stars in the sky now.
So, those bones? When they built the NYCentral line up the river the bones were used as ballast. That has subsequently been rectified.
Anyway, so much for the Jews and Indians, what about the ordinary Protestants? Well, that's where they got dropped too ~ the Dutch (Reformed) in New York in that day felt they were oversubscribed with Huguenots so they got shipped up the river as well ~ to Shodack Landing. Three Huguenot brothers arrived from France ~ they carried peas for planting with them. The fellow mentioned above, and his wife, let them have a garden plot for the peas.
If you have New York ancestors who date back to the 1600s those folks are relatives.
I simply cannot imagine how wild things were where a Jewish woman gets off a boat alone and marries the only man on the shore!
Did a search on "old American families" and came across the following NY Times article from May 15, 1887, which mentions something called "the Gore Roll"
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9B04EEDE1730E633A25756C1A9639C94669FD7CF