Some Genealogical Notes on Humphrey Bogart

Some Genealogical Notes on

Humphrey Bogart

Compiled by James Pylant

In stark contrast to the characters he often portrayed, actor Humphrey Bogart came from an aristocratic family. Born Humphrey De Forest Bogart was born 23 January 1899 in New York, the son of Dr. Belmont De Forest Bogart and famed illustrator Maude Humphrey.¹ The 1900 Federal Census shows Humphrey D. Bogart, age five months, born December, 1899, in the household of parents Belmont D. Humphrey, a physician, age thirty-two (born July, 1867) and Maud H., age thirty-two (born March, 1868), both New Yorkers, in South Bristol, Ontario County, New York.²

Born in Watkins Glen, New York, Dr. Bogart graduated from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1896. He died on 8 September 1934 in New York.³ Charles Kidd, in his marvelous Debrett Goes Hollywood, describes Humphrey Bogart’s father as a "well-educated, old fashioned . . . pompous man."⁴ Belmont D. Bogart’s great-grandfather, Jacob Bogart (1772-1823), was also a New York physician. He was one of the organizers of the Cayuga County Medical Society and served as its first secretary in 1806.⁵ The Bogarts descend from Tunis Gysbert Bogaert, who came to America from Holland in 1652 and married Sarah Rapalje two years later in New Amsterdam.⁶

Humphrey Bogart also descends from a doctor through a maternal line. Maude Humphrey Bogart was a direct descendant of Philadelphia physician Joseph Strong. Of Dr. Strong, Charles Kidd wrote: "This good man was something of a xenophobe, and was once driven to exclaim that ‘the curse of this country is the foreign marriages made by our girls — if I had it my way I’d make it a hanging matter.' "⁷ It is through Dr. Joseph Strong (1770-1812), a Yale graduate, that Humphrey Bogart shared kinship to the late Princess Diana — among many, many other notables, as chronicled extensively by Gary Boyd Roberts.⁸

Humphrey Bogart’s four marriages were to actresses: (1) Helen Menken, (2) Mary Philips, (3) Mayo Metho, and (4) Lauren Bacall (born Betty Joan Perske). His last marriage lasted from 21 May 1945 until his death on 14 January 1957.⁹

NOTES AND REFERENCES

John Albert Bogart, The Bogart Family: Tunis Gysbert Bogaert and His Descendants (Scranton, Penn.: the author, 1959), p. 171.
Belmont D. Bogart household, 1900 U. S. Census of Ontario County, New York, South Bristol, SD 14, ED 80, p. 212, sheet 4a, NARS microfilm T623-1139, dwelling 70, family 73.
Ibid., p. 169.
Charles Kidd, Debrett Goes Hollywood (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), p. 117.
Bogart, The Bogart Family: Tunis Gysbert Bogaert and His Descendants, p. 159.
Ibid., p. 34.
Kidd, Debrett Goes Hollywood, p. 117.
Gary Boyd Roberts and William Addams Reitwiesner, American Ancestors and Cousins of the Princess of Wales (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1984), pp. 21, 33.
Kidd, Debrett Goes Hollywood, pp. 118-121.

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