My Dad's cousin, Ed Raser, was interested in geneology and spent a considerable amount of time researching the Raser family. He produced this family tree and gave my father a copy. It hung on our living room wall growing up. He later published a book called "Our Raser Family" and my brothers and I all got copies. So, if you've stumbled across this web page while researching the Raser family name, please contact me and I can certainly provide more information.

You can see that Ed Raser has traced the family lineage back as far as 1655. You can see that the family name was originally Reser, but that it changed to Raser with Bernard Raser in the 1700's I understand that the Reser's were Dutch and emigrated to Pennsylvania where there was a strong Dutch community. They developed their own identity as Pennsylvania Dutch. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch )

My great-great-grandfather John Heyl Raser (who I am named after) was an artist. Here is one of his paintings:

I guess drugging your infant child was popular back in those times.

His son, my great-grandfather, continued on in Reading Pennsylvania as a Pharmacist. He also created Root Beer extract, which he later sold the rights (I'm told) to Mr. Hires which became Hires Root Beer. In doing some searching on the Internet I was able to find these receipts and business cards and post cards from my Great Grandfather's store.

My grandfather also continued on in Reading Pennsylvania as a Pharmacist running Raser's Drug Store. My dad didn't continue the tradition, and became an aeronautical enginer instead. But he recalls working at the drug store growing up. Like most drug stores back then, they had a soda fountain, and my dad worked the soda fountain while his dad filled prescriptions.

And you can read his biography here:

You can also see more of his pieces on this web site: