Descendants of RICHARD EASTWOOD

Richard Eastwood, and his young wife Elizabeth, braved the four month voyage from England to the first English Colony in America, Jamestown, in 1642...

Thus began the intro to my first draft of THE EASTWOOD FAMILY TREE (completed July 16, 2006) which I posted on my new website (Birth Aug. 2),  www.seastwood.com on August 8, 2006. Over the next 2 months I became obsessed with genealogic research, family history, and writing for the new Clint Eastwood site. I was constantly updating and revising the family tree, getting ready to put the finishing touches on it and publish it to the website. Prior to converting all the PAF files to GEDCOM files and uploading them all to the site, I did a cosmetic update to this page on the night of Oct. 5, 2006. It included cleaning up and resizing the above image and building a cell to enclose it. I also thought the intro should both introduce and personify the heads of the new  AMERICAN EASTWOOD FAMILY TREE and perked up the opening text to read...

In 1642, barely into their 20's, newlyweds Richard (1620 - Mar. 6, 1691) and Elizabeth Eastwood departed their family home and headed to Portsmouth Harbor, England’s leading seaport, to board a ship which, over the next four and a half months, would transport them to their new exciting future in America. Landing in Jamestown, the first English colony in America (founded on the James River, in what became known as Virginia in 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts). Jamestown, home to America's first, and then busiest harbor, evolved into Norfolk, Virginia, becoming the center of Southern America's political and social life until the 1700's.

Through an arrangement with the ship's Captain, John Garrett, the Eastwoods acquired and settled on 400 choice, fertile, acres along Indian Creek off the James River. Though granted the land by Virginia Gov. Sir William Berkeley, and under the order of King James of England, those land parcels included the homes of the ranking Chiefs of thirty tribes of the Powhatan Indians. In March 1622, the Powhatans launched a brutal attack on the English settlements and the few English survivors totally withdrew from the area. The colonists sent for reinforcements and they later countered the native attack to eventually regain the land.

After a decade of intermittent warfare, the Jamestown colony had grown to about 8,000 English settlers, while the Powhatan population had fallen to less than 5,000. Though both sides had experienced devastating diseases, famines, and drought, the natives were no longer as closely united, due to the displacement of their tribes. They were the victims while the English pushed further inland seeking more land for their cash crop, tobacco. In April 1644. less than 2 years after the Eastwoods' arrival, the Powhatans launched one last fierce raid against the English colonists  They killed hundreds of settlers, but the English were so numerous by that time that they were able to quickly retaliate. After two years of brutal raids, the Powhatan Chief Opechancanough was captured, finally ending the hostilities.

This was the environment that the young Eastwood family encountered while attempting to first build a house and then plow hundreds of acres to avoid starvation. Despite their lack of experience with such skills, they were able to persevere, and by 1672 they deeded a portion of their "Plantation" to their eldest daughter, Judith, and her new husband, Jonathan Granger. By the time of Richard's death in 1691, there were several 100 acre Plantation parcels for his widow and offspring.

THE FOLLOWING LISTS THE DESCENDANTS OF THE AMERICAN EASTWOOD FAMILY

Sadly, that's as far as I got, as my "Hot Shot" Sony VAIO computer began to screw up that night, and the following morning it failed to boot up. Over the next several days I sought assistance from myriad sources, resulting in my purchase of a Sony VAIO recovery disk, a new Maxtor Hard Drive, and such. I also wasted over $400.00 attempting to recover any of the data, programs, thousands of lost music files, images, screenplays, prior websites, genealogy research and pages, my internet favorites, passwords, financial info, etc. from my original crashed hard drive, Result: Total Loss of everything! And then there's multiple hosting problems!

Eleven generations later, Clinton Eastwood Jr. becomes a legendary film icon, known throughout the world as a producer, director, actor, musician; arguably the most famous man worldwide in the entertainment business. Sadly, though his younger cousin, Steve, has thoroughly researched their mutual and respective ancestry, as well as hundreds of hours on Clint's personal life and his 50 year career, he sits here writing a lame explanation for the missing Family Tree pages.   To Be Continued...

  Saturday, January 26, 2008 02:17 AM

*Until I can redo the EASTWOOD FAMILY TREE...    

I've switched the hyperlinks below to "Clint's Maternal Ancestors", a short abbreviated Pedigree Family Tree which I built on May 14, 2007, which somehow survived the destruction of my many websites and hard drive loss. You can still see Clint's Eastwood Pedigree by clicking on "Parents"  of each of his Eastwood ancestors (Scroll to the top of each page). It does not list families, other offspring, marriages, and the details found on the complete Family Tree.


 I hope to reconstruct another basic tree in the very near future.

To begin, Click on DESCENDANTS and scroll up to the top of the page - it's not blank....

Then there's two ways to approach the following 13 pages.
 1. If you want to start with the Mayflower's Gov. William Bradford and trace down the maternal line to Clint Eastwood: after scrolling to the top of the page, click on the "Last" button , find Bradford and continue to click on "child" at the top of each generation's page until you reach "Clinton Eastwood Jr."

2. If you want to start with Clint: Then you CLICK ON CLINT'S "PARENTS"  , and continue to click on each generation of Eastwood until you reach the 1st American Eastwood generation - Richard & Elizabeth. Then you must scroll down to "Mercy Bradford" for the last two maternal generations.

 You're now on your own...    GOOD LUCK! 

Table of Contents

* NOTE: I cannot say enough about this wonderful, essential tool! Personal Ancestral File (PAF) is a "free" (really) genealogy and family history program. PAF allows you to quickly and easily collect, organize and share your family history and genealogy information.
Download PAF