The Abelites were a small, fourth-century Christian sect in Hippo, North Africa which practiced sexual abstinence, although members were required to be married (this was because the Bible m... [more]
This choir of children aged five to 12 years was founded in 1984 by Raymond R. Barnett, himself an Irish-Canadian orphan and ordained minister, who first went to Uganda in 1982. It was begu... [more]
Pope Alexander VI was born into the wealthy and corrupt Borgia family of Valencia, Spain, and adopted by his maternal uncle, Alfonso Borgia (later Pope Callistus III). He collected religiou... [more]
Apess's parents were itinerant basket-makers and he lived as a young child mostly with his grandparents, who were very cruel to him. When his grandmother broke his arm he was rescued by an ... [more]
Ancient Roman society institutionalized the adoption of adults. It was relatively common for a wealthy Roman couple to adopt an adult man, even a slave, as heir if they did not have any son... [more]
Bede was sent to a monastery at the age of seven (see Oblates) and ordained a priest aged 30. He is most famous for his Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, a history of the conversion o... [more]
Bemo, born Talamasmico in or before 1825, was the nephew of the great Seminole Chief Osceola. When he was nine or 10 (in 1835) his father died after a drunken brawl in St. Augustine, Florid... [more]
Bradford was born into a well-off family in Yorkshire, but his father died in 1591. His mother remarried in 1593 and William was then raised by his grandfather and uncles as a farmer. Wh... [more]
Brady was born in New York. His mother died when he was very young. His father remarried, but Brady seems to have been unhappy with his step-mother, and he ran away from home when he was ei... [more]
Brainerd was orphaned in 1732. From 1743 on he was a missionary to the Algonquian people of New York State and the Delaware people of New Jersey. Dictionary of American Biography Hirschfel... [more]