Jane Tomaszewski was thinking about becoming a Catholic when she learned an unusual fact about herself.

She’s the direct descendant of a canonized saint.

“That was the clincher for me: ‘Oh, I think I was meant to be Catholic,’” Tomaszewski told the Register.

The rarity is a conversation starter, but also a question mark, as Hans Whitmer, the director of faith formation at Tomaszewski’s parish, told the Register, describing the time he first heard about it last summer, before Tomaszewski joined the parish’s adult conversion program.

“I was kind of like, ‘Is that even real?’” Whitmer said.

The Register asked a similar question, to which Tomaszewski, whose maiden name is Kim, provided a family tree compiled by her uncle that shows she is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Nam Chong-sam (c. 1816-1866), one of the 103 Korean martyrs St. John Paul II canonized in 1984 in Seoul.

Nam, whose Christian name was John the Baptist, was the nephew and godson of a high-ranking government official in Korea and entered government service himself. According to one short biography, his work was tricky, both because the government was generally suspicious of Catholicism and because official duties sometimes involved ancestor worship, which conflicts with Catholic teachings.

Nam was caught up in an anti-Catholic persecution in 1866. He was arrested and tortured before being beheaded outside the Small West Gate of Seoul.

Nam and 102 others are known collectively as “St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions” in the Church’s liturgical calendar, with a feast day of Sept. 20.

 

Saint in the Family

Why are descendants of canonized saints rare?

The vast majority of the approximately 11,000 people the Roman Catholic Church recognizes as saints were priests, nuns or lay brothers who took vows of celibacy and therefore are unlikely to have biological descendants.

Only about 19% of the Americans currently being considered for sainthood (23 out of 129) were laypeople, according to a website called “American Saints and Causes,” which tracks such information.

And since detailed and enduring vital records are a relatively new phenomenon in human civilization, most people struggle to trace their family trees farther back than the 18th or 19th centuries. Perhaps 1,600 people have been canonized since 1850 — many of them celibates and many from earlier centuries.

“I’d never met anybody before related to a saint, and I’m a cradle Catholic. It was pretty wild,” said Dan Tomaszewski, Jane’s husband.

He said he prays to St. Nam Chong-sam for the health and well-being of his family. He imagines his first-grader and fourth-grader praying in the future to the saint who is their direct ancestor.

“It’s amazing, and it’s something that the girls, our two daughters, can hopefully stand on for the rest of their life, once they realize the significance,” he said.

Whitmer, who leads the parish’s adult conversion program, said the significance of Jane’s family connection has grown on him over time.

“The more I think about it, the more profound it is,” he said.

“It’s forced her to dig into it a little more. I think it’s really a blessing her,” he said.

 

‘Come to the Water’

Jane Tomaszewski, 48, the daughter of Korean immigrants, grew up in Cincinnati. She has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a master’s in business administration. She met her husband Dan while both were working in the oil industry. Today, she helps manage the business side of mental-health clinics that her husband runs.

While she was growing up, her family attended Methodist and Presbyterian churches, but she wasn’t baptized.

Dan was raised a Catholic, but stopped going to church as a young adult. During the coronavirus restrictions, Dan and Jane moved their older daughter to a Catholic parish school and started attending Mass there.

Jane loved the music of the parish, St. Robert of Newminster in Ada, Michigan — especially the hymn Come to the Water, which she heard early on. 

“The Holy Spirit just overcame me. I was in tears singing this song,” Jane told the Register. 

“I knew I was in the right spot, and that I was supposed to be there, supposed to be doing this,” she said. “There’s just something about the beauty of the praise that really grabs me.” 

Her older daughter received first Communion at St. Robert’s. As her second daughter, now in first grade, got closer to preparing for her first Communion, Tomaszewski became determined to beat her there.

“I think that was part of my motivation: We need to be able to go to Communion together as a family,” she said.

The Register asked her about the countercultural implications of what she’s doing, since more people leave the Catholic Church in the United States than enter it, according to a February 2025 report from the Pew Research Center.

“In my opinion, it seems to me there’s also a counter-current bringing people back, as well,” she said, “because as the world goes in a certain direction, people don’t always love what they’re seeing.”

Tomaszewski plans to be baptized during the 9:15 p.m. Easter vigil Mass at St. Robert’s this Saturday, followed by confirmation and first Communion.

She is part of a large harvest this year in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, which expects 222 baptisms this Easter plus 262 already-baptized people formally entering the Catholic Church with a public profession of faith. That total number of converts — 484 — is 19% higher than in 2024 (407). It’s also the highest in the diocese since 2011 and 36% higher than in 2019 (357), the year before the coronavirus hit.

Jane’s confirmation name is Nam Chong-sam.

Her mother, Inja Kim, told the Register by email that she is excited about her daughter’s upcoming baptism and thankful to the Tomaszewski family for their strong Catholic faith.

“I came to the USA [in] 1973 & didn’t go to church & feel guilty about it. Now Jane’s making up for me,” she said. “Very happy mom here.”