The Roosevelt Family

One Family Gave America Two Presidents. The Thread Between Them Was a Girl Named Eleanor.

Theodore and Edith Roosevelt with their six children in a garden portrait
His Six Children

Service and Sacrifice

Alice, Ted Jr., Kermit, Ethel, Archie, and Quentin. All four sons served in World War I — and Quentin, the youngest, never came home.

The Roosevelt family posed together in 1903: Theodore, Edith, and their children
The Family Tree

From New Amsterdam to the White House

Dutch merchants, the Oyster Bay and Hyde Park branches, and two presidents in thirty-five years — trace the line from Claes van Rosenvelt to TR and FDR.

Elliott Roosevelt with his young daughter Eleanor, the future First Lady
Elliott Roosevelt

The Troubled Brother

Charming, gifted, and undone by addiction, TR’s younger brother died at 34 — leaving behind a serious little daughter named Eleanor.

Portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933
The FDR Connection

Fifth Cousins, One Dynasty

TR and FDR shared a distant ancestor — but it was Eleanor’s 1905 wedding, with her uncle the President giving the bride away, that truly joined the two branches.