Mendel was born on July 20, 1822, in a German-speaking family of Heinzendorf in Silesia, part of the Austrian Empire now Hynčice in the Czech Republic and was baptized 2 days later. During his childhood Mendel worked as a gardener, and as a young man attended the Philosophical Institute in Olomouc. In 1843 he entered the Augustinian Abbey of St. Thomas in Brno. Born Johann Mendel, he took the name Gregor upon entering monastic life. In 1847 he was ordained as a priest. In 1851 he was sent to the University of Vienna to study, returning to his abbey in...
at two meetings of the Natural History Society of Brünn in Moravia in 1865. When Mendel"s paper was published in 1866 in Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brunn, it had little impact and was cited about three times over the next thirty-five years.

Elevated as abbot in 1868, his scientific work largely ended as Mendel became consumed with his increased administrative responsibilities, especially a dispute with the civil government over their attempt to impose special taxes on religious institutions.

Mendel died on January 6, 1884, in Brno, Austria-Hungary now Czech Republic, from chronic nephritis.