Johann Mendel (7/20/1822 – 1/6/1884) was born into a farming family in Silesia, which is now part of the Czech Republic, Mendel became familiar with cross-breeding plants in childhood, working as a gardener. For millennia, farmers used this method to achieve desirable plant and animal traits.

Mendel had trouble paying for his education, in part because of extensive absence due to illness. His sister gave him her dowry to help. On becoming an Augustinian friar, he received the name Gregor and a free education, as his abbot, C. F. Napp, sponsored Mendel’s 1851 – 1853 studies at the University of Vienna. Mendel returned to the monastery and taught primarily physics.

Abbot Napp had established an experimental garden in 1830. He authorized Mendel to use it, and Mendel focused his experiments on plants, choosing edible peas. He investigated traits including plant size, seed shape, pea color, and pod shape.

Mendel’s 1856 – 1863 experimental work led to the discovery that certain plant traits are due to “dominant” and “recessive” factors, which are now understood to be genes. Mendel’s work was largely ignored for decades because it could not be understood. Rediscovered in the early 20th Century, these and other of his “rules of heredity” were independently verified and are today’s Laws of Mendelian Inheritance, the foundation of modern genetics.

Mendel succeeded Napp as abbot in 1867. He helped his sister support her three boys. Two of them became physicians.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org