Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh
(1888-1941)
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An American naval officer Captain Van Valkenburgh served as the last captain, and commanding officer, of the USS Arizona. He was killed on December 7, 1941 when the Arizona exploded and sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Following the violent explosion of the Arizona, 1,177 of the 1,512 crewmen aboard were killed. Captain Van Valkenburgh's body was never found; all that was ever retrieved was his Annapolis class ring. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor "for devotion to duty ... extraordinary courage, and the complete disregard of his own life."
A 1909 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, his mother was Jane Irvin Swoope who was born in Curwensville, PA. on Christmas day in 1865.
Learn more about Captain Van Valkenburgh by clicking on his photo above.
Welcome to Your Clearfield Descendants Website!
Linking our Past to the Present
the hearts of the children to their fathers.
~~ Malachi 4:6 ~~
Thank you for visiting! This website is the result of more than 50 years of research and painstaking record keeping. Still a work in progress it contains thousands of names from thousands of families with roots in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.
You'll find over 26,000 names and 9,500 families recorded here. There are 4,450 unique surnames, and nearly 4,600 place names. This website includes thousands of photos, and supporting documents with more than 16,700 individual notes.
Among the names are numerous pioneer settlers and Clearfield area families whose posterity and far-reaching influence have spread to every corner of the country, and to other nations of the world.
Some of the most prominent surnames are listed below. If your family has a connection to any of these, you will likely find this website useful.
Explore and enjoy! And please email your comments, corrections and suggestions to clearfielddescendants@gmail.com. It's greatly appreciated!
regard or remembrance.
~~ Daniel Webster ~~
Support this website and become a patron,
for as little as $1 a month, by clicking on the red link.
John Wayne
(1907-1979)
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Born Marion Robert Morrison, the legendary film actor, John Wayne is related to Clearfield county's prominent Passmore family.
The Academy Award winning actor starred in numerous movies including True Grit, The Alamo, and The Green Berets. Epitomizing rugged masculinity he became an enduring American icon with a larger-than-life image who symbolized and communicated American values and ideals.
A Harris Poll, of 2015, placed Wayne fourth among America's favorite film stars, the only deceased star on the list and the only one who has appeared on the poll every year since it first began in 1994.
Click on his photo above for more.