St. Clair Sinclair DNA and the Templars

My friend, Steve St. Clair, was very excited about showing me Saint Martin des Champs in Paris. He, Alan Butler, Janet and I had many talks about why this was so important to him. In fact, he had a Power Point show with him when we met up at Troyes to educate us about why we had to include St Martin des Champs in the episode. So we did.

The connections Steve found at Saint Martin des Champs prove without any doubt that the Sinclair / St. Clair family of Herdmanston were closely connected to, and in several cases, directly descended from important Templar families.

Today, I’d like turn this space over to guest blogger Steve to explain his research. _________________________________________________

Saint Martin des Champs, Paris

Merovingian burial, Saint Martin des Chanps

The chequy armorial at Tomar Portugal, 

reminiscent of Warenne or Vaux of county Norfolk, England.

We saw several other sites besides the ones you saw on the season finale.

This is a painting at Saint-Sulpice, Paris.

First, thanks Scott for the opportunity to be a guest blogger here. Looking at the pics you’ve put up of our trip to France, I have to wonder why we didn’t include our wives in the season finale. The episodes would have been much better looking! Anita and I had great trip and a lot of fun hanging out with you, Janet, Alan Butler, and of course Maria & Andy and the wonderful crew from Committee Films.

I remember the night in the hotel’s small bar when we were all quite tired - none more than Alan who had flown over that day and had quite a drive to meet us. I pulled out my computer to show you guys a presentation about what I was finding regarding the priory of Saint Martin des Champs. Near the end, I mentioned that my greatest interest was the Counts of Champagne because it was becoming clear to me that they were connected to the Saint-Clair family. Alan, tired as he was, lit up, “The Counts of Champagne were the money behind the Templars!”

Over the course of the next couple days, Alan wasn’t feeling very well (the weather was pretty miserable), so I drove his rental car with him in the passenger seat. We had a lot of time to chat in-depth about the importance of the Counts of Champagne, the Champagne Fairs, and much more. It has been collaborations like these over the past many years that has made my own research into the DNA and history of the Saint-Clair family much more accurate, interesting, and engaging.

Many of the angry skeptics, who take pot shots at the show from the peanut gallery, don’t seem to realize how such shows are made. After commercials, each episode of America Unearthed is 44 minutes. That doesn’t leave a ton of time to go into extreme detail about the research being shown. An example is my work on Saint Martin des Champs. It took me 16 months to research and write the 6,000 word paper now on my Sinclair DNA website at this link – http://www.stclairresearch.com/content/Sinclair-Templar-Proof.html

That recent website post at St Clair Sinclair DNA Research is generating quite a bit of interest, both from those who welcome it, and those who are upset by my claims.

The facts are the facts. At some point, the pundits must come out with legitimate evidence to dispute my claims, or slink away with their tails between their legs. The beauty of DNA is that it doesn’t lie. People who have something to gain can attempt to bend the truth, but the data itself is brutally visible.

I’ve seen several people in our own DNA study attempt to use their results to make terribly weak claims. Yet the science of DNA always wins out, much like Scott’s research into artifacts like the Kensington Runestone and the Tucson Lead Artifacts.

Stones and DNA are both factual, scientific evidence. As Scott said in part 1 of the season finale, the fakes reveal themselves quickly, but the legitimate ones just won’t go away.

In this blog post, I want to talk about the evidence that just won’t go away in the St Clair Sinclair DNA study

Several years ago after extensive reading of medieval benefaction records to priories and abbeys, I realized that the medievalists I most admired were skirting around something. They seemed to be heavily focused on medieval people with different surnames who were donating land and money to the same abbeys. But they seemed reluctant to make too many definitive claims.

For instance, a particular abbey called Savigny in France. It was one of only a couple abbeys I have found to which the St. Clairs directly donated lands. Yet, notice the other families also donating land there:

• Vilers (a brother of Norman St. Clairs.) 
• Montfort (tenant and likely related to St. Clairs.) 
• Creon (Templar family.)
• Meulan (major land holder and likely related to St. Clair.) 
• D’Albini (descendants of the Honour of Belvoir and to which the St. Clairs married into. Directly related to the Counts of Champagne.) 
• Mandeville (Geoffrey de Mandeville, made a Knight Templar on his deathbed and founder of the Temple Church in London, the single most important Templar building in England.) 
• Vaux (married into the d’Albini family. I’m directly related to the de Vaux) 
• Bisset (witnessed the grant of land to the Sinclairs of Rosslyn and showing up in the DNA SNP matches of our Exeter Lineage.)

The clues above are why I’m so obsessed by these names. But not just because of their benefaction to abbeys and priories.

People changed their names at the drop of a hat in medieval times – move to new land, take your second name from that new land. Eventually these names stuck.

The names changed, but the DNA did not

Richard de Vilers was a brother of Haimo and William de St. Clair in about the year 1120. Those brothers gave the land of Richard de Vilers to Savigny, with the permission of Stephen count of Mortain. (Savigny was an unusually important Cistercian Abbey in the diocese of Avranches, France.) Hubert of Saint-Clair was a tenant of the count of Mortain in Somerset.
They were all related. Their surnames were not yet fixed.
So now, if you were to find two people alive today with the same DNA, yet one’s name is Vilers, and the other is St. Clair…guess what…they both descend from the same medieval family.

Finding people closely allied in medieval records

+

Finding two people alive today with those same two surnames

who match closely in DNA SNPs

=

Both are descendants of the medieval people.

This is precisely what I’ve found

But these weren’t just any connections. The Saint-Clairs of Herdmanston have connections to those at the very top of the founding of the Order of the Temple.

And it became very clear by doing detailed research into which families were giving gifts to the priory of Saint Martin des Champs in Paris. But that’s only one religious house. There are many others that I’m digging into.

We’re not just talking about DNA SNP matches:

1. Particular families alive today are in the DNA SNP matches of the Herdmanston family. That’s SNP matches. They share paternal blood with particular families. It is irrefutable. 
2. Those particular families fit the narrative of the Saint-Clair family. What do I mean by that? I mean if you go back and study the actual records of the Saint-Clair family, then you will understand that you must show some of these same particular families in your DNA SNP matches to make any claim of connecting to the narrative of that particular Saint-Clair family story. 
3. The particular families who fit into the narrative of our Saint-Clair family story in medieval records of land, benefaction, and/or marriage? 

• Mandeville
• Wishart
• Strathern
• Bisset
• Moreville
• Redver
• Viller
• Warenne 
• Vaux
• Ashley
• Urtaico
• Mortimer 
• Etc.

As Scott said about particular ancient carvings, they keep hanging around impossible to disprove. DNA SNPs combined with medieval document connections are very much like that.

Scott, Janet, and Alan, I’m delighted we got to chase the Templars through France. And I think we’re just getting started.

Steve St. Clair