| How many other people are as uninformed
and/or misinformed about Saints as I was? The
little I knew about Saints left me with the
impression that Saints did not have children.
After almost a half-century of having this
belief, imagine my surprise when I discovered
that not only did Saints have children but a
number of Saints are my own ancestors!
People who know me may be tempted to dismiss
this claim immediately, just based on present
evidence. However, recorded history confirms my
story, and the Odyssey Edition shows countless
ancestral pathways from everyday folks (as well
as famous people, like President Bush and Prince
Charles) to their Saintly connections.
The other misconception I had about Saints is
that they would have always been .... well ....
saintly. Saint Olga dramatically shattered that
misconception. Before she found God, she had
hundreds scalded to death and otherwise murdered
for murdering her husband, Grand Duke Igor I of
Russia.
When you are going to be away from the
computer for a half hour, try a 20-generation
descendant view of Saint Olga (PIN 15616).
Although this chart maps a number of her lines of
descent into only the 1500's, scrolling through
the 10,131 boxes on this chart shows how widely
dispersed her genes were by then, and gives a
good indication of how extensively they are
dispersed today.
As the Search Tips page of the A&E Info
section explains, the best way to find actual
Saints is to search Name: Contains for
"Saint". Fifty-five Saints will be
quickly located (four other matches in the list
of 64 matches are connected to the famous
sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and five others
have Saint as either a first, middle, or
surname).
By toggling through each person in the Match
List (via the two arrows above “Matches”),
you will find other interesting insights into the
lives of Saints, such as one who spent his early
life as a pirate, one who was axed to death by
his father, one who was personally baptized by
the Apostle Paul, and a number of the founders of
well-known abbeys, convents, and monasteries in
Europe.
I hope others will find it as enriching as I
have to discover their own ancestral connections
to Saints, and insights into the lives of those
Saints.
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