Historical canonized saints heritage of the people of today's genera, - men and women.

St. Brychan Gododdin, Brenin Brycheiniog is your 34th great grandfather.

A. Saarinen, thank you just opened another branch "apparent" in my tree
He also appears as one of the 53th grandfathers; I am enclosing an interesting article about British DNA studies. The very interesting fact consigned by the study is that there is very little Roman DNA left in the Island.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11480732/Brito...

Thanks again for your research. Jacques

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/18/8252797/uk-genetic-map-reveals-in...

Dear A. Saarinen.....Fascinating. The article shared by Ulf contains additional insights. Concerning St. Cyllin "mythical or not" He could very well have been an Original Celtic Briton King and/or a descendant from the original post glacial age inhabitants of the isles. In any case the tribes at the time had quite a problem dealing with the Roman invasions; who knows if some of them actually intermarried with the Romans for political reasons or others just came to life due to war or folly. We will not know about St. Cyllin until some of his evidence is found.. Noting that legends often are base in real events............. and sometimes in the vivid imagination of some.

Saint Lucy, i love dear saint
Mi mother prayer for u eyes, to Saint Lucy. She do miracle. Tradition
remember u died, u eyes out martiry. many pictures famous artist have this act.

Meginhard, Graf von Sponheim is your 26th great grandfather.

http://www.geni.com/path/Arthur-Wilkings-Newkirk-III+is+related+to+...

A. Saarinen, Thank you for the post, very interesting, I thought about you and Armenia, last week the fallen a century ago in those terrible events got Canonized by the Easter Christian Churches. I am sure there are many branches from some trees that reach Armenia, therefore there are very many new Canonized Saints in Geni's database.

Greetings Jacques

Margaret (1045-1093) was an interesting figure. She flees north after the invasion and her ship ends up in Scotland,. By 1070 she is married to Malcolm III and goes on to be Queen Consort for 23 years, developing a reputation for piety and generosity, perhaps in contrast to the somewhat brutish Malcolm.
One of her achievements is the establishment of a river ferry on the Forth estuary which continued up until the road bridge was built in 1964. North and South Queensferry are so-named after her.
Three of her sons became King of Scots, including one named Edgar and she was later canonised by the Church, with her Chapel in the grounds of Edinburgh Castle being the oldest building in the City.
So that means Scotland's most famous royal saint was a "Sassenach" from the House of Wessex...

Early 5th-6th century Saints were sons and daughters of basically royalty, removed from fighting for the throne, or diluting the lands of the little kingdoms more than necessary, by giving them very small patches of lands for Abbie's and for political power in the Church, to support their family, balancing other families Saints.
There were an occasional Saint King or Queen; more than likely due to deaths of those in line to inherit.

I really haven't noticed any of the early Welsh/Britannic Saints of that era, being other than from high birth. It was still common in the better families, to read Latin. Being a Saint beat the hell out of having to plow your own fields on your farm, and kept them in High Status, which, beat being prince of a couple farms and eight farmers.
In the 'North" there was a lot of royal Pict blood, so being a bastard was not then a disadvantage it later was. See Rhun Hir (Hir meaning tall) c520 c549-?580s son of Maelgwn Hir (the Tall) c497--c549and if not mistaken, Saint David of Wales.

If you are fortunate enough to have a relatively large family tree, you probably can find connections to many saints, as well as to royals, villains, and history’s victims. If your documented tree is smaller, you probably have the same connections: you just can’t see them.

We all have even more connections to people who have left no historical record.

Forgot to mention, Saints and monks, had no military duties of the normal 14-23 year old who belonged to a war-band. Draft free.
So at some battle the Britons/Celts lost, some 2,000 Saints and monks showed up to pray; not to fight.
At the time the 'Saxon's' were pagans, so Christian monks and Saints were not sacred. A fine haul of slaves was made from pacifistic Christians who believed prayer was stronger than the sword.

Again, Saints were tax free. But the question was what was a Saint? In those early days if all Christians, were tax free it would indeed explain the fall of the Roman Empire and the lingering of the Dark Ages. Or was it only the very many Royal's as Saint.
Well Christianity had a day off every 7 days, the Romans one every 10 days.

William Cameron sainthood was always allocated after death, so no Christian saint has ever personally benefited from this status. But indeed, most of the higher rank clergy (bishops, etc) were of high birth

William Cameron William Cameron, do you remember the "Fractured Fairy Tales" segment on the old Bullwinkle cartoons? Some of what you say brought them to mind, as it doesn't seem you've read the same histories I've read, or didn't read them the same way.
A few points:
As to monks being tax free - they owned nothing to speak of anyway. Taxes generally went with the land, and in most cases a monastery was granted the privilege of not being taxed, if it were under a Christian monarch - not all of them were. In any case, the monks took vows of poverty and often used what posessions they had to help the poor.
As to not plowing the fields, who do you think plowed the fields of the monasteries? They didn't keep servants. Read the Rule of St. Benedict sometime - manual labor was part of the deal. And waking up before dawn to pray, and praying several times during the day, and evening prayer, and prayer at midnight - as well as taking your turn preparing the food and cleaning up from meals, and scrubbing the floors of the monastery, and serving the poor. Seems like the easy life is back up at the 'High Status' table they left.
As to all of them being 'High Status', that is liable to be true for the ones you are connected to in Geni. Are you connected to St. Patrick? Most of my ancestors were Irish, but no connection to St. Patrick because he had no offspring and his parents were obscure. Saint after saint after saint is the same way. Try this - look up the people in Butler's Lives of the Saints and see how many are connected to you in Geni - I'll bet very few are, but those who are are all of royal blood - because land inherited by birth prompted genealogical record keeping.

Ard van Bergen Ard van Bergen makes a good point about higher ranking clergy being of high birth if you're looking a thousand years later than the early 5th-6th centuries. The contrast caused by this is very stark in France as the 18th Century closes and many priests are sympathetic to the Revolution while most all the bishops are opposed.

I don't like the idea of genealogical sites calling someone "Saint" unless xe has been formally canonized by a major church (e.g., Roman Catholic, Easter Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.).