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( Rockefeller family)
The Rockefeller family, the renowned Cleveland family of John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) ("Senior") and his brother William Rockefeller (1841-1922), is an American industrial, banking, and political family of German American origin that made the world's largest private fortune in the oil business during the late 19th and early 20th century, primarily through the Standard Oil Company.[1] The family is also known for its long association with and financial interest in the Chase Manhattan Bank, now JP Morgan Chase. The family was also the fourth richest family in history. The name is an anglicized version of the German Rokkenfelder or Rockenfeller, meaning from Rockenfeld. The Rockefeller's origin can be explicitly traced back to the villages of Ehlscheid, Segendorf and Fahr, (all suburbanised to Neuwied) [2]. These are neighbored to the small settlement of Rockenfeld - part of Neuwied's quarter Feldkirchen.[3] In Germany, Rockenfeller is known as a family name. Family records in parish registers reach back to the end of the Thirty Years' War. The earliest known ancestors (direct line) are Johann Wilhem Rockenfeller (*ca. 1628,†1702) and Johannes Rockenfeller (*ca. 1634,†1684). Johann Peter (*1682), son of Johannes, moved in 1723 to Ringoes, NJ. Johann Thiel (*1695), grand-son of Johann Wilhelm, immigrated in 1735 to Germantown, NY. William Avery Rockefeller was looking for a noble descent and a possible connection to a french huguenot family de Roquefeullie was discussed. However, this is unlikely because the name Rockenfeld is recorded in the region long before the huguenots had to flee France[4]. Johann Peter's grandson, William, married a distant relative, Christina, the granddaughter of a cousin of Johann Peter. This marriage produced a son, Godfrey, who married Lucy Avery in 1806. Avery's ancestors were part of the Puritan tide from Devon, England to Massachusetts around 1630. Lucy Avery could justly claim descent from Edmund Ironside, the English king, crowned in 1016.
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