[1] Members of the family have also been part of the Swedish, Russian, Spanish, and Prussian nobility.

The family's earliest known patrilineal ancestor is the knight Eilardus (1241†).

The most prominent member of the family is perhaps Pyotr Wrangel, a military officer in the Imperial Russian Army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia.

Other notable family members include Ferdinand von Wrangel, an admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy, Arctic explorer, and governor of Russian Alaska, and Herman Wrangel, who served as governor-general of Livonia.

[2] The family was naturalized in 1772 and introduced in 1776 with number 2092 at the House of Nobility.