Anyone researching the Eastman
family name always finds themselves lead back to Downton in England. Downton
seems to be where the family lines began, although the original Eastman came
from the "East" well before the 1500s.
Investigation and research into the
Eastman name via the internet always seems to lead researchers to sites and
information about Roger Eastman who
emigrated from Downton to America on the ship Confidence that
departed from Southampton on April 11th 1638 and arrived in Massachusetts Bay
Colony, America, on April 30th of that same year.
There isn't a lot of other
information about the Eastman family that was left behind in Downton available
online. Yet the Eastman family remained in Downton right up to the late 1900s.
So far, I have based my research on the Eastman families who remained in
Downton.
Hopefully, with this web site I will
be able to answer some questions that I have seen posted on forums here and
there and perhaps give other budding genealogists a bit of insight into the Eastman family of Downton. My research is on
going and I welcome any additional information that I may not yet have, along
with any alerts to errors I may have made in my own endeavours at trying to find
the roots to my family.
It's common knowledge that the main
workers of the Eastman family were the basket weavers in Downton. For over 400
years the Eastman men weaved baskets and chairs and such in a small room in
their own home on the Borough. But before they owned the business, it actually
belonged to the Isaac family. I have not been able to establish at which point
the Eastmans purchased the business from the Isaacs or if there were any other
reasons behind ownership changing hands.
Another interesting point in the
history of the family is that over the generations, the Downton Eastmans married
into the Smith family atleast twice. Roger Eastman, who emigrated to America in
1638, married Sarah Smith who was herself a Downton girl and in 1929 Gilbert
Eastman married Linda May Smith who was also born in Downton and from the same
Smith family that Sarah Smith came from.
This site holds a lot of
information. Some of the names I have been able to slot into relevant families
along with dates or years but a lot of other information I have not been able to
put anywhere, so I have just held onto it with the genuine belief that one day I
will find the connection for this or that person.
I have also attempted to look into
the other families who have married into the Eastman family. I have put as much
information as I have on linked pages. If information is missing for certain
people, I may not have added it because it didn't gel with what I had already
written, or I could be working on another page to add. Please feel free to
contact me if you are after a name or date that I might have, I would be happy
to pass the information on to you if I have it.
Recent
Updates...
June 20th 2005... A new
surname has been found for the Eastman family lines from Downton. The
surname of GUYER has been identified and you can read about it here.
June 14th 2005... Added a
new page about the descendents of Prince Leopold Eastman called Modern
Day Eastman Descendents and included some photos
of the Delany children who are Leo's grandchildren.
June 11th 2005... Spelling
mistakes were corrected on the Acknowledgements
page and the spacing of link icons on the home page were adjusted.
News!
Am currently working on the
Eastman data offline, trying to get the data I have for the 1700s to make
sense and match it to the Eastman lines of the 1800s.
A second page for the Ancestral
Photos is in the process of being created, to help cut down on load time
for researchers who are using the internet service at slower speeds.
This site has made it onto some
sites that hold links for genealogy pages.
