The Bassleroceratidae is a family of gradually expanding, smooth ellesmerocerids with a slight to moderate exogastric curvature, subcircular to strongly compressed cross section, and ventral orthochaonitc siphuncle.

[1] Basslerocerids are limited to the Lower Ordovician[1] and first appeared sometime in the Gasconadian, (Tremedocian) They gave rise, possibly through Bassleroceras, by evolving and ever tightened curvature to the Tarphycerida[2] and by a thinning of the connecting rings to the Graciloceratidae which are ancestral Oncocerida.

The Bassleroceratidae was named by Ulrich et al., 1944 [1] and assigned to the Basslerocerida, an order proposed by Flower (1950) intermediary between the Ellesmerocerida and the Tarphycerida, which also included the Graciloceratidae.

Flower later abandoned the Basslerocerida and added the Bassleroceratidae to its descendant group, the Tarphycerida.

Furnish and Glenister on the other hand included the Bassleroceratidae in with its ancestral group, the Ellesmerocerida, where it is generally assigned.