ABSTRACT

Heinzendorf, a village in Kuhlandchen, three or four miles south of the townlet of Odrau and about ten miles from Neuteschen, was Gregor Johann Mendel’s birthplace. The name of Mendel, a corruption of Emanuel, was formerly common among the Jews as a given name, and later also as a surname. For this reason some have supposed that Gregor Mendel must have been of Jewish descent. Anton Mendel the second, son of Valentin Mendel and father of Johann Gregor, was born at Heinzendorf on April 10, 1789. For eight years he served as a soldier, playing his part in the closing wars of the Napoleonic epoch, and thus seeing the world. Gregor Mendel’s bodily habitus likewise resembled that of his ancestors. The men of these mountain regions, not excepting those who dwell in Wessiedl to-day, are usually short and stocky. The Mendels, in particular, seem to have been almost all of small stature.