Imagine getting invited to a family Zoom call, and having more cousins than you can fit in Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
For the Wyckoff family, that is not so far-fetched.<\/p>\n
The Wyckoff name has been part of Brooklyn’s history for hundreds of years. The family traces its American roots to Pieter Claesen Wyckoff, who settled in the New World in the 1600s.<\/p>\n
Ten generations later, Matt Wycoff is still learning about the ancestor who started it all.<\/p>\n
“It’s definitely neat. I feel very lucky. You hear stories of people getting interested in genealogy, especially as they get older. And all that work was kind of already done for me,” Matt Wycoff said.<\/p>\n
Dani Wyckoff is another branch of the sprawling family tree. She said the name has followed her across the country.<\/p>\n
“I’ve run into people with the same last name at restaurants in California … They’re everywhere,” she said.<\/p>\n
And sometimes, strangers recognize the connection.<\/p>\n
“I’m checking in for the reservation. They’re like, ‘Oh wait, that’s my last name, that’s crazy,'” Dani Wyckoff said.<\/p>\n
The family has even had a dedicated genealogist: Jason Wyckoff, a 13th-generation descendant and family historian associated with the Wyckoff House Museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n “There’s Wyckoff town in New Jersey, there’s Wyckoff Lake in Michigan, this Wyckoff mountain in Montana, there’s even a glacier in Antarctica named Wyckoff Glacier,” he said of the family’s impact.<\/p>\n The family’s history is extensively documented through old records and books, tracing descendants through generations of early Brooklyn history.<\/p>\n Those descendants served in America’s wars, married into presidential families, and became pioneers in fields including art, science and film.<\/p>\n Today, the Wyckoff family in America operates as a genealogical organization with a database containing more than 65,000 family members across 18 generations.<\/p>\n The family’s history is centered around the Wyckoff House Museum<\/a>, the homestead of their ancestor and a site believed to be the oldest standing structure in New York state. Its oldest part dates back to the 1650s.<\/p>\n And even 65,000 documented descendants may be only a fraction of the larger family.<\/p>\n “My conservative estimate thinks that there’s probably over a half million folks who really are what I would call a cousin,” Jason Wyckoff said.<\/p>\n For Matt Wycoff, who said he didn’t know of his family ancestry until he was cleaning out his late grandfather’s house, the most meaningful part of that history is the story of the immigrant who started it all.<\/p>\n “That’s the part of his story that I really connect with is that, you know, that he went on this grand adventure and was an immigrant to this country. Like virtually everyone else,” he said.<\/p>\n A grand adventure that created a family so large, you’re bound to run into a cousin in nearly every state.<\/p>\n Have a story idea or tip in Brooklyn? Email Hannah by\u00a0CLICKING HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n