Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1901-08-27
A PRIESTS aENEALooX.
He Can Tracs His Forefathers Back In.
dividuaIly to Adam,

dividua1ly to Adam.
Queen Wilhelmina's much-heralded
ancestry of 1900 years and her reputed
descent from BalthaZar, King of Ar
menia, who some maintain was one Of
the three wise men who made presents
to the infant Savior, is put to blush by
an unassuming Delaware County (Pa.)
pastor, who can trace his descent over
5000 years to the days when Adam and
Eve began the history of the human
race in the garden of Eden.
Indeed, those who have the pride of
ancestry should look with enyious eye
on the Rev. Matthew P. O'Brien, rector
of st. Charles Roman Catholic Church
in the little hamlet of Kellyville.
Through long line of kings and no
Bile ancestry Father O'Brien can trace
his descent clear back to Brian Boru,
who early in the eleventh century was
supreme ruler of all Ireland, and who
died April %, 1O14.
This, however, is only the beginning.
Starting with Brian, who is twenty
six generations removed, he goes back
twenty-one more till he reaches Oliol
Olum, King of Munster; a jump of for
ty-seven generations more reaches Mile
sius, who was King of Spain thirteen
centuries before Christ; from Milesius
to Adam is thirty-six generations, so
that Father O'Brien is 130 generations
from Adam, or 5,905 years from the
creation of the world
From the information of those who
are wont to twiddle their fingers at
| pedigrees and to make faces when
crowned heads are turned away from
them, and who affect to despise rather
than dearly love lord" it may be
stated right here that Father O'Brien
can put his finger, fguratively speak
ing, of course, on one and all of his
long line of progenitors, can call them
by name, and is thoroughly posted on
their doings, good, bad, and Indifferent
Yet, despite the fact that he can keep
tabs on his ancestors away back Of
Solomon the Wise, the Queen of Sheba,
and David and Lots wife, Abraham
say nothing of Moses and his little
tramp Of forty years in the wilderness
Father O'Brien is democratic in his
tastes and bearing, and as faithful q
pastor as he is democratic.
For the benefit of the unbelievers who
perhaps have but little data or accurate
information regarding their great
grandfathers Father O'Brien stated the
J other day that he thought it might be
as well, although he was perfectly able
to go back 5,905 years, for him to rest
his claims of ancestry on the broad
shoulders of the giant Brian Boroimhe,
who was monarch of Ireland ten odd
centuries ago, and chased his enemies
across the bogs Of the emerald isle a
q good long while before William the
Conqueror subjugated England with
his Norman hosts.
Father O'Brien has traced his long
ancestral tree only after many years
of the most careful and painstaking re-
search, and he is positively sure that
he has not made one mistake
Ancestry has always been a fad with
him, but he is frank to acknowledge
that he had no idea when he started to
investigate the subject of his own that
he could go back, without break, to
Adam, the original progenitor Of man.
kind,
Think of man being able to tell who
his ancestor was when Helen Of Troy
was sweet 16, when the hanging gar.
dens of Babylon were in full bloom and
| pIorv when Achilles was a schooIhOy
or when Romulus was still in the care
of his she-wolf oster-motherLPhila
delphia Inquirer.