These Are the Generations: A Biography of the von Roeder Family and its Role in Texas History

Flora von Roeder is one of thousands of direct descendants of a family in a Germanic entity in Europe called Anhalt. The family can theoretically be traced back to 1218 and is documented back to 1390. Those are spans of 795 and 613 years, respectively. Her intent here is to show how the main branch of this family emigrated from the European continent to the North American continent and to show its ability to establish roots and grow and multiply in an entirely different lifestyle under primitive circumstances into a clan that stretches today into many U.S. States, Canada, Mexico, back into European France and Germany, and to Hong Kong, and Australia. Between 1834 and today, there are as many as eight or nine generations of this family, most of whom were born in the U.S. Many do not carry the original surname, and many who do have changed it. Because the English alphabet does not carry the umlaut, an "e" was inserted after the "o" to make the spelling more accurate, and that made the pronunciation more confusing. Today we have "von Roeders," "von Raders," "von Raeders, and many have just dropped the "von" altogether, so we have just "Roeders." And, of course, there were the name changes through marriage; i.e., Engelking, Kleberg, Eckhardt, Binz, Wundt, Flato, Van Hutton, Regenbrecht, etc. Nevertheless, all can still be traced back to those knights called Koppen (Jacob) and Hans Röder or von Röder in a feudal letter awarding them noble lands at Harzgerode, Anhalt, in 1390.