Thomas Pope-Elizabeth Gove-3rd Great Grandparents Wedding Anniversary

Family Tree History
Deitz-Pope-Gove Line
Anniversaries
Thomas Pope and Elizabeth Gove

 158th Wedding Anniversary 

3rd Great Grandparents 

Thomas & Elizabeth Pope

We all have 32 third Great Grandparents.
To this date I have discovered about 8 of these couples, which is roughly half of them.....

Today, October 31st, is the wedding anniversary of one of those eight couples without who myself and my siblings and their children would not exist:
Thomas Paschal Pope and Elizabeth Adaline  Gove, my 3rd great grandparents.

Today is the 158th anniversary of their marriage.

Elvis Aron Presley-12th Cousin

Family Tree History and Research
Deitz Family Line
Mayhew-Skiffe-Reaves Branch
Elvis Presley

A new discovery today!
As I was researching one of my lines from my mother's branches I was notified that one of my Family Tree programs found another rather well known relative.
I am amazed at how small the world really is and how humanity is so connected to one another.

The line is a long one and through researching the various other lines that connect to this one I discovered it is a blood line that not only goes back to our mutual ancestral great grandparents but also goes back further to some very interesting people. Read on for my discoveries.

Today I introduce you to our 12th Cousin, Elvis......

The Kashubian Exodus-The 1st Polish Settlers of North America-

Family History Research
Repinski Family Tree History
Repinski-Dulak/Dulek Line
My Kashubian Ancestors

My First Polish Settlers of North America 

"A Long Line of Kashubian Immigrant Ancestors" 

About a month ago I received a message from my cousin Shelby Repinski Ellison who just happened to be traveling abroad for work and she messaged me from Poland...the "Mother Land" of my dad's family.
To say I was a little jealous of her at this moment is just a bit of an understatement....

She asked if I knew of any of the areas where some of our family ancestors may have come from.
I have quite the list and I am sure that after sending numerous 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and more Great Grandparents and the places that they came from in Poland....she was probably saying "Oh why did I ask??" (inject big grin).

Some day I hope to make it to Poland and visit all of the places I have discovered in my research. I haven't talked to her since her return but I do hope that she got the opportunity to explore a bit.

As I was going through some of the family tree branches on my Repinski/Dulek side to find these towns for her, I decided to do a little more in depth research into one of the areas that quite a few of my ancestors came from.

I already knew from previous research that most of my dad's ancestry from his mother's Osowski side of the family and her mother's Kiedrowski side of the family all came from an area of Northwest Poland called "Kashubian Pomerania".
A distant cousin, Arthur Newkirk, who lives in North Carolina has helped me with this line by finding and adding some of my ancestors to my family tree on Geni.com which is where I have a tree connected to the "World Tree". The more ones line is filled in on the World Tree, the better one is able to connect to other relations through out the world and throughout history.

The more I dug into my family lines, the more I realised just how intimately KASHUBIA and POMERANIA are connected to my dad's family lines from both his father, Clarence Repinski and his mother Evelyn  Dulek Repinski starting in the late 1800s and establishing the bedrock of our family as we know it today.

As one write up in an article on the first settlers says very well:

The hopes and dreams of these immigrants began to be realized as they moved into the 1880’s. 
Their simple log homes became part of larger and more comfortable white frame houses. Their children moved to their own farms or to the city for work or to set up a business. 
Seven more Polish Catholic parishes were organized. 
Even though the "chain migration” from the Kaszuby region had begun to subside by the mid-1880’s, immigrants from the Austrian and Russian partitions of Poland began to find their way to Portage County - usually after a short stay in Chicago or Milwaukee while deciding where to locate. 
Perhaps they were drawn to this area by the large, successful Polish community with its Polish Catholic Churches which had its beginning almost 150 years ago.

Some of those immigrants to North America and in particular the ones that settled in Portage County Wisconsin that are my ancestors have the following surnames: Repinski, Dulek, Osowski, Riemer, Kowalski, Cyzewski, Kosobucki, Mrocki, Zblewski, Kiedrowski, Kynter, Polzcynski, Janta, Wosocki,


Come learn about Kashubia and Pomerania and those Kashubian Poles who emigrated away from their homeland to make new lives for themselves...a very large part of the ancestry of my Repinski/ Dulek family history...

October 22, 1930-Grandparents Clarence & Evelyn Repinski married

Family History and Research
Repinski Family History
Anniversaries and Birthdays

Today is the 86th Wedding Anniversary of my paternal grandparents, Clarence and Evelyn Repinski.
Conrad "Clarence" Jospeh Repinski married Evelyn Mary Dulek on this day, on October 22nd, 1930 in Plover, Portage County, Wisconsin.

Clarence was born May 23, 1907 in Sharon, Portage, Wisconsin to Joseph Repinski, age 33 & Elizabeth Stroik age 28.
He was the 6th of 12 children.
Clarence's siblings were:
Mary: 1898-died right after birth
George: 1899
Edward: 1901
Pearl: 1903-
Loyd: 1905
Clara: 1909
Dorothy: 1911
Theordora: 1913
Alwine: 1914
Evelyn: 1918
Regina: 1920

Evelyn was born April 26th, 1907 in Plover, Portage, Wisconsin to John Dukek, age 30 and Hedwig Kowalski, age 22.
She would be the 3rd of 12 children.
Evelyn's siblings were:
Chester: 1904
Johanna: 1906
Joseph: 1908
Irene: 1910
Maurice: 1911
Beatrice: 1913
Theresa: 1916
Isabelle: 1918
Angeline: 1920
Hedwig: 1922
John: 1925

Clarence and Evelyn would go on to have 10 children and 32 grandchildren (and many great and great great grandchildren to this day)  during their 86 years together:

From left to right top row: Mary, Althea, Margaret, Loretta, Clarence, Evelyn, Maurice, James,
Bottom Row seated: Richard, Shirley, Robert (Missing is Charles)

The ten children (and grandchildren) of Clarence Repinski and Evelyn Dulek Repinski:
Maurice (my father)
(Jane, John, James, Jackie, Jeff)
Loretta
(Robert, Donald)
James
(Diane, Kenneth, Alan, Thomas, Dale)
Margaret
(Linda, Karen, James, Christy)
Charles
(Lynn, Joseph)
Althea
(David, Audrey, Timothy, Amy, Jeffery
Mary
(Connie, Richard, Laura, Scott)
Shirley
(Danielle, Michelle, Kevin)
Richard
(Barbara)
Robert
(Shelby)


My Grandfather, Clarence, died on July 21, 1992
My Grandmother, Evelyn died on February 16, 2000

Happy 86th Anniversary in heaven Grandpa and Grandma!
We all Miss you both and love you so much....

Jacqueline Kennedy (1st Lady)-13th Cousin

Family Tree History & Research
Deitz-Pope Family Line
Smith/Angell Branch
New Discovery: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy-13th Cousin


Today while researching one of my ancestral branches in my dad's family tree and then my mom's family tree I discovered a line that connects both of my family lines to one of the most popular 1st ladies that ever lived.

I was looking into my polish family lines and first discovered that one of my lines from my dad's Repinski side of my ancestry goes back to the Polish-Lithuanian noble Radziwill line in the 1600s.

From that line I drilled down through the centuries and discovered that I had a 13th cousin thrice removed named Antoni Stanislaw Albert Radziwill.

Read on for my discovery....

Robert Cushman-11th Great Grandfather

Family History & Research

Robert Cushman
11th Great Grandfather
(Responsible for the Charter of the Mayflower)


Since discovering my family ancestry from my mother and her grandparents, Henry Deitz & Grace Pope, back to Plymouth Mass. and the Mayflower Pilgrims, I have found many ancestral great grandparents and relatives that have English, Scottish and Irish roots.

Robert Cushman is one of those ancestral great grandparents.

Though Robert was not on the Mayflower and is not one of the 1st settlers of Plymouth Colony, he is treated as such in the history of the Pilgrims, as without his assistance, this chapter in the history of the world might never have been written.

Come along with me and meet one of the men responsible for the the Charter of the Mayflower and the sowing of Early Colonial America....

Ancestry DNA Primer

Family Tree History & Research
DNA/Ancestry
General Mayflower Ancestry
Cushman Family Line

DNA...
The building blocks of who we are as human beings.
I have often wondered how these building blocks of "us" can tell us about our ancestry.

As I am researching the history of another of my ancestors, my 11th Great Grandfather, Robert Cushman, I came across a very interesting article on how our DNA as a species and its mutations through history has resulted in pretty much everyone who has English-European ancestry.

The fossil record places human origins in Africa some 150,000 years ago, but science continues to search for details about the incredible journey that took Homo sapiens from Africa to the far reaches of the Earth.
How did each of us end up where we are?
Why do we have such a wide variety of colors and features?

Through the eons of time, the full story of human ancestry remains written in our genes. When DNA is passed from one generation to the next, most of it is recombined by the processes that give each of us our individuality. But some parts of the DNA chain remain largely intact through the generations, altered only occasionally by random mutations, which become what are called genetic markers. The order in which these markers occur allows geneticists to trace our common evolutionary time line back many generations.

Different populations carry distinct mutation, or genetic markers. Identifying and following the markers back through generations reveals a relationship shared by all humans, best conceptualized in the form of a genetic tree. Today, thousands of diverse branches, corresponding to unique human groups, can be followed backward to their common African root more than 100 millennia ago.

The following missive is a fairly easy read and a good introduction to how these genetic markers can trace our ancestry back to the very beginnings of time and the birth of the human race.

I recently purchased a "23 & ME" DNA Testing Kit and plan on submitting my DNA sample soon.

The focus of the following article is some of the specific DNA genetic markers, that through time, resulted in me and my siblings and their children from our ancestry from our 11th great grandfather.

Mostly everyone with European ancestry will also have most of the same markers.....

Today In My Family History-Battle of Hastings

Family Tree History & Research
Ancient History
Dietz-Pope Family Branch
The Battle of Hastings-13 October 1066


The Battle of Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman conquest of England. It took place approximately 7 miles (11 kilometres) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.

Many of my ancestral Great Grandfathers and Great Uncles and Cousins that I have discovered through my mother's line fought in this battle that changed the course of history for England and the entire world for all time, most of them being on the side of William.
The Norman influence on the world as we know it today is such that almost every facet of life has some Norman origin......Read on:

Wont You Be My Cousin-Fred Rogers

Family Tree History Research
Deitz Family Tree
Pope-Jenny Line

On a lark today I decided to do the "Geni.com Spin the Relative Wheel" and came up with a cool cousin connection to a "Childhood Friend" through my mom's family tree lines back to New England.

That line then goes back to England and connects way back in history around 1428 with one of my 15th Great Grandfathers named Sir John De Neville, who was the Earl of Northumberland and his sister, my 16th Great Aunt named Lady Eleanor De Neville Stanley, who was the Countess of Derby and who would be Fred Roger's 14th Great Grandma.

I grew up watching Fred and his pals and learning about manners and how to be nice to one another.
His shows taught me much about the world and I so looked forward to his being my neighbor each day of the week. On weekends I couldn't wait until Monday rolled around.

Each episode began the same way: Mister Rogers is seen coming home, singing his theme song "Won't You Be My Neighbor?", and changing into sneakers and a zippered cardigan sweater.
In a typical episode, Rogers might have an earnest conversation with his television audience, interact with live guests, take a field trip to such places as a bakery or a music store, or watch a short film.
Typical video subjects included demonstrations of how such inanimate objects as bulldozers and crayons work or are manufactured.

Each episode also included a trip to Rogers' "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" featuring a trolley with its own chiming theme song, a castle, and the kingdom's citizens, including King Friday XIII. The subjects discussed in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe often allowed further development of themes discussed in Mister Rogers' "real" neighborhood.

Mister Rogers often fed his fish during episodes. They were originally named Fennel and Frieda.
Typically, each week's episode explored a major theme, such as going to school for the first time.
Originally, most episodes ended with a song entitled "Tomorrow", and Friday episodes looked forward to the week ahead with an adapted version of "It's Such a Good Feeling." In later seasons, all episodes ended with "Feeling."

Come meet "my neighbor" and my cousin.....

Charlotte Saunders Cushman -5th Cousin

Family Tree History & Research
Deitz Family History
Cushman Family Line
Charlotte Saunders Cushman
5th Cousin
Stage Actress 19th Century

I came across an article today in the New England Historical Society Email Newsletter about Charlotte.
I remember seeing her name in my family tree on the Cushman side somewhere.
I did a little climbing of the branches and came upon our relation to each other.
Another of my New England kin from my mother's family tree.

Charlotte led a very interesting life and by all accounts was very famous in her time.
Read on for her story (taken from the article from the NEHS email newsletter and a few other sources) and a few tidbits from yours truly.......

Piers Gaveston- 24th Great Grandfather

Family Tree History & Research
Deitz Family Tree
Gaveston-De Clare Line
Piers Gaveston-24th Great Grandfather

My research into my family history has taken me back to the 13th Century quite a bit lately.
I have always found the medieval era fascinating and now lately even more so since I discovered that many of my mother's lines go back to some of the most written about people of the time.

Today I discovered that Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall and the doomed lover of King Edward II was the 1st husband of my 21st Great Grandmother, Margaret De Clare Galveston Stafford, Countess of Gloucester.

Then as I continued my research I discovered that he was also my 24th Great Grandfather while researching one of my other lines!!

Piers and Margaret had one daughter, together named Joan, who died at age 13.
But Piers also had an illegitimate daughter named Amie (Amy) with another woman and this Amie would become my 23rd Great Grandmother

My 24th Great Grandfather lived a very interesting life. He was born of parents that held no special social standing and rose to become one of the favorites of a King as well as the Earl of Cornwall.
He was given a wife of royal lineage and was given much wealth by the same king who favored him intimately.
And because of his relationship with that King, he met an untimely death.

Come along as I try to tell the story of a man who's blood runs through the veins of myself and my siblings and their children......

Gaveston Coat of Arms

Almira Swart Deitz-3rd Great Grandmother

Family Tree History & Research
Deitz Family Tree
Swart Branch

Today, September 23rd, 2018 is the birthday of my 3rd Great Grandmother.
She would have been 187 years old.

Her story is one that I do not know very much about and though I have only begun researching that branch of my mother's tree, the following is what I have been able to discover:

Richard Warren-11th & 12th Great Grandfather

Family History Research
Richard Warren
Mayflower Passenger & Plymouth Pilgrim First-comer


About 398 years ago, my 11th (& 12th) Great Grandfather boarded a ship in England and traveled to America, just as many people have done since.
The only difference is that the journey across the ocean that my ancestral great grandpa was on was a voyage that was documented fairly well and one that would become a huge part of American History.

Today I would like to introduce Richard Warren, whose blood runs through the veins of myself and my siblings and their children because of our mother, Marlene Deitz Repinski.

This is his story and thus part of my story.....My Pilgrim Ancestral Great Grandfather.

My Journey to become an Official Mayflower Descendant

Family Tree History & Research
My Mayflower and Pilgrim Roots
My Journey to Become and Official Mayflower Descendant

September 2018

A few weeks ago I received a letter that I have been anxiously awaiting and now the quest to prove the pedigree that my siblings and I and their children inherited from my mother has officially commenced.

The letter to which I reference came from the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and it was in response to my initial inquiry to them to ask them to trace my family lineage back to two 11th Great Grandfathers who just happened to be Mayflower passengers;
Isaac Allerton and Richard Warren.

It was just about two years ago when I discovered by pure coincidence while digging into an online family tree that I didn't know existed, that these two men (among many others) from Plymouth Mass. were ancestors of myself and my siblings through our mother.

Read on....

The Mayflower-Part of My History

Family History & Research
September 16th, 2018

On This Day in History: September 16, 1620

On this day in 1620, the Mayflower departs Plymouth, England and sets sail for the New World. The Mayflower is one of the most important ships in American history and one which carried many of my ancestors who settled in Plymouth Colony. This cargo ship brought the pilgrims to Massachusetts during the Great Puritan Migration in the 17th century... Click here to read more: http://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-mayflower/ And read on to see my historical connections to this "Ship of Dreams"

Mary Ayer Parker-12th Great Aunt

Family Tree History & Research
Mary Ayer Parker
12th Great Aunt

Victim of The Salem Witch Trials of 1692


The other day I found myself researching another of my family tree lines and I came upon 2 different 10th Great Grandmothers from one of my mother's family lines, Love Ayer Kingsbury and Ruth Ayer Dennison.
I found it odd that while looking into this genealogy, they had the same maiden names.

A little more research and looking at a few of my trees and I figured out that they were 1st cousins to one another...
Their fathers, Thomas and Peter respectively, were brothers, both being my 11th Great Grandfathers (born of John & Hannah Ayers) that sired two different lines, eventually leading to me and my siblings and their children
I can't tell you how many times this has happened in my mother's family tree branches.

I then found the sister of Thomas and Peter Ayers, my 12th Great Aunt, Mary Ayers Parker.

Today I would like to introduce everyone to this ancestral family member.

Her story starts in Haverhill Mass. in Colonial New England around 1637 and also ends in September of 1692 in Colonial New England, more specifically in Salem Mass......

Come along and meet my 12th Great Aunt, Mary Ayer Parker.....and a glimpse of my 10th and 11th Great Grandparents from another of my mother's family branches.

George Soule & Mary Bucket/Becket-11th Great Grandparents-Mayflower Passengers

Family History Research
August 2018

George Soule (c. 1600 – between 20 September 1677 and 22 January 1679) was a colonist who was one of the indentured servants on the Mayflower and helped establish Plymouth Colony in 1620.
He was one of the signers of the Mayflower Compact.
George Soule was also my 11th Great Grandfather.

As I continue my research into my mother, Marlene Deitz Repinski's family lines that I discovered a little more than 2 years ago, I am learning so much and continue to be awe struck by my family history through her father and his ancestors.

I still get tears in my eyes each time I find another of my ancestors that she should have known about.
How her parents and the rest of my family on her side never knew of these awesome lines back in history, I will never be able to fathom.

I am so happy that I was the one who finally "rediscovered" all of these amazing ancestors and my goal in my lifetime is to reacquaint my family and my friends with them so they will never ever be forgotten again.

In the last two years I have discovered at least 250 ancestral great grandparents and each week I find at least 2 more to add to that growing list.
Some of them gained fame like George did by being part of   the written history of our planet and being part of some pretty remarkable events and others passed their lives with barely a mention in a newspaper or a family bible if even.
None of them are more important than the other in my eyes and I endeavor to put "a face and flesh and bones" to each of them that I discover.

The history of one of my ancestral great grandparents who lived their entire lives without ever venturing out of their birth town is just as wondrous to me as the one who donated land for a village church or the one who came over on a great ship or the one who fought in the American Revolutionary War or the one who owned slaves or the one who created the first Baptist church in America or the ones who were descended from Kings and Queens of Europe.

I have all of the above in my history and amazingly I have some of these ancestors on both sides of my tree which means that most of my family does as well.
Case in point, I just discovered about a year ago that my father, Maurice Repinski, descends from one of the royal houses of Poland and that his family's ancestors were instrumental in the founding of the village of Rzepin in Poland.

Come along and meet my 11th Great Grandfather and Grandmother, George Soule and Mary Bucket/Beckett Soule. George and Mary were true pioneers and were the progenitors of an American legacy of many human beings, myself and my siblings and their children included.....

Elizabeth Moyes Smith-3rd Great Grandmother

Family Tree History & Research
July 21, 2018

Our Scottish 3rd Great Grandmother

Yesterday was the birthday of our 3rd Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Campbell Moyes Smith....
She would have been 184 years old.

Elizabeth was the 1st Scottish ancestor that I discovered while researching our mother's family tree.
Her history is documented fairly well thanks to a biography of Wisconsin families that I came across while doing research on this line.
Elizabeth immigrated to America from the British Isles with her family when she was only 7 years old!

Elizabeth was born in Errol, Perthshire, Scotland on July 20, 1834
Her parents (our 4th Great Grandparents) were John Moyes and Elizabeth Rogers Moyes.
She was one of six children.
One of her other siblings, Margeret, was born on the same day as she was, thus she was a Twin.

She married Edward Young Smith on December 2, 1853, in Brookfield, Wisconsin. They had nine children during their marriage. She died on February 22, 1923, at the age of 88.

Click over to my Blog to meet another of my family's ancestors.....

Daniel Webster -U.S. Statesman & Fourth Cousin

Family History And Research

Today as I was researching my New England Family Tree branches that called the Plymouth Mass. area home, I came across the  biography of one Daniel Webster in a book about some of the leading citizens of the Plymouth Colonial Era.

Further research revealed that Daniel and I are fourth cousins 8 times removed and we share a man named Henry Kingsbury as our common ancestral great grandfather.
Henry Kingsbury would be Daniel's 3rd great grandfather and Henry Kingsbury would be my 11th great grandfather.
Henry Kingsbury profile

Daniel Webster descends from Samuel Kingsbury:
Samuel Kingsbury profile

 I descend from Jospeh Kingsbury:
Joseph Kingsbury profile

 These two men were brothers along with seven other siblings.
The Kingsbury line came from England to Mass via Henry and settled in Ipswich and Haverhill Mass.
.....kind of a cool history unfolding for me with this line.

I remember reading about Daniel in grade school and always felt some weird connection to his life and story..... and now I know why.

And then there is the short story "The Devil & Daniel Webster" which was made into a movie as well, and though I never read it or paid it any attention, I learned just now through some research that the fictional story features as the jury, some interesting "real" people from colonial New England, with some being ancestral relatives of mine....such as Thomas Morton who founded Merrymount Mass., a 3rd cousin and Walter Butler, a loyalist, a 4th cousin.

I never realized how interesting his life was and how connected he is to my family tree. He was, in addition to a lawyer and politician and statesman, an avid farmer.
His properties in the Marshfield Mass. area included some of the lands of my ancestral great grandparents and their families including the Winslow and Miller family lines that I descend from.

My family connection to Daniel Webster:

Daniel and John are fourth cousins 8 times removed
Daniel Webster and John Repinski are both descendants of Henry Kingsbury.

1. Daniel is the son of Abigail (Eastman) Webster
2. Abigail is the daughter of Rodger Eastman
3. Rodger is the son of Huldah Kingsbury
4. Huldah is the daughter of Samuel Kingsbury
5. Samuel is the son of Henry Kingsbury
This makes Henry the third great grandfather of Daniel.

1. John is the son of Marlene Grace (Dietz) Repinski
2. Marlene is the daughter of Raymond Harold Dietz
3. Raymond is the son of Grace Elizabeth (Pope) Dietz
4. Grace is the daughter of Henry Allen Pope
5. Henry is the son of Thomas Paschal Pope
6. Thomas Paschal is the son of Eliza Ann (Converse) Pope
7. Eliza is the daughter of Ephraim Converse
8. Ephraim is the son of Eunice (Hyde) Converse
9. Eunice is the daughter of Ephraim Hyde
10. Ephraim is the son of Hannah (Kingsbury) Hyde
11. Hannah is the daughter of Joseph Kingsbury
12. Joseph is the son of Joseph Kingsbury
13. Joseph is the son of Henry Kingsbury
This makes Henry the 11th great grandfather of John.

Another Mayflower Ancestral Connection

Family History Research
Monday, May 28, 2018

A new family discovery!

Another Mayflower Ancestral Great Uncle unearthed...
(This makes 23 great grandparents and 8 great uncles and or aunts that I have now discovered in my ancestral lines that came over on the Mayflower).

As I am digging through my various family tree branches back to New England on my mothers side I came upon the tree of one of my 10th Great Grandmothers who was the niece of another Mayflower Passenger...
The history of these people and their connections to each other are absolutely amazing.

Meet my 10th  Great Grandmother: