In Memory of Diane Repinski Pichler

Sunday August 25th, 2019

Today I take a break from my family history to honor a member of my family from the present who passed on to the next realm a few days ago. 

It is rare that one person can touch so many lives in such a positive way. 

My cousin Diane was one of those people.

We understand death only after it has placed its hands on someone we love.

And when death has placed its hands on those that we love, it gives us solace to remember them and their life.

Today I remember my friend and my cousin.....

Monument To My Plymouth Forefathers

Family History and Research
Repinski-Dietz Family Tree

"My Mayflower Heritage"

As I continue to research my mother's  (Marlene Dietz Repinski) family history going back to Colonial New England and the Mayflower and the pilgrims, I was brought to tears by the monument below and the photos of it.

Engraved on this majestic monument are the names of the 102 brave souls who journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America in the year 1620 to start new lives in a new world. Of these 102 people, I and my siblings, through our mother, would descend from 16 of them and an additional 9 of them would be ancestral great aunts and uncles.

I have a feeling that I share kinship with many more of these 102 people but research to this date has not showed any more than the 25 people I have discovered. 

Close to 400 years later, these "Forefathers" now have over a million descendents including myself and my siblings and their children.

I am honored and proud to be one of these descendents of the "forethathers".