The Roosevelts are one of American history’s most prolific and influential political families: Leaders such as Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt not only redefined the eras in which they lived but also shaped the country for decades to come, in some ways changing the very political fabric of the nation.  The family arrived in pre-independence America around 1649, when Dutch immigrant Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt and his wife Jennetjke began life in New Amsterdam (later known as New York). Shortly after their arrival in the Americas, anglicized variations of the family surname ...Read More