Descendants of Jefferson, Slave to Undergo DNA Tests

For generations, students of the life of Thomas Jefferson have passionately debated a matter that has always been more gossip than scholarship: Did the founding father have an affair--and children--with Sally Hemings, a slave on his Monticello estate?

Now, there might finally be real clues to argue about. Genetic specialists at Oxford University in England are comparing the DNA of Jefferson family descendants with those who trace their ancestry to Hemings. The test results will suggest whether the families are related and whether Jefferson and Hemings had children together.

Eugene A. Foster, a retired University of Virginia pathologist who traveled throughout the country to collect blood samples from 19 men and is coordinating the Oxford research, cautioned that the results probably won’t solve the mystery conclusively.

“What it will do is throw the probability [of Jefferson’s paternity] in one direction or another,” Foster said. “It will provide the first shred of objective evidence in all of this. So far, it’s all been speculation.”

Jefferson was a statesman, philosopher and architect. The red-haired native of Virginia wrote the Declaration of Independence and founded the University of Virginia.

He was elected president in 1800, and rumors about his alleged relationship with Hemings surfaced two years later. Jefferson’s wife, Martha, died in 1782, and Jefferson never remarried.

Hemings, a light-skinned black woman who was said to be beautiful, was Martha’s half sister. Hemings had six children while she lived at Monticello, most of them so fair-skinned that they were commonly mistaken for white.

For many historians and Jefferson descendants, it is unimaginable that Jefferson--who despite his reputation for enlightened thinking was an opponent of “racial mixing”--would have had a relationship with a black woman.

“The general feeling is that Thomas Jefferson wouldn’t have had children out of wedlock, particularly with some woman who was not in a position to say no,” said Robert Gillespie, president of the Monticello Assn., a group of about 800 Jefferson descendants. “Slave owners did take advantage of slave women, but I doubt Thomas Jefferson did.”

“In my judgment, the prospect of the relationship being true is remote,” said Joseph J. Ellis, author of “American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson,” last year’s National Book Award winner for nonfiction. “Not because they say he was a gentleman and gentlemen do not do that sort of thing. . . . But based on six years studying Jefferson, I believe his deepest sensual urges were directed at buildings rather than women.”

Ellis denounces as “fools and liars” those who claim to have unraveled the mystery. “Based on what we know now,” he said, “we can never really know.”

But for others, the oral histories kept by Hemings’ relatives provide clear evidence that the two were linked romantically and had six children during a 38-year relationship.

Annette Gordon-Reed, an associate professor at the New York School of Law and author of “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, an American Controversy,” said there is more to support the liaison than historians choose to consider. She is particularly concerned that the oral histories of Hemings’ descendants have been ignored.

“The image that has been promoted about Jefferson has gotten in the way of a fair assessment,” Gordon-Reed said. “The words of black people are not taken seriously when there is an issue of great import to whites.”

In her book, published last year, Gordon-Reed cites many examples to support the relationship. The most obvious includes that Hemings’ pattern of conceiving children can be tied to Jefferson’s presence at Monticello.

Although Jefferson’s relatives remain skeptical that their ancestor had a liaison with Hemings--many suggest it was Jefferson’s nephews, Peter and Samuel Carr, who fathered Hemings’ children--both Jefferson’s and Hemings’ descendants have cooperated with the testing, for the most part.

The tests “will lay this to rest,” said Gillespie, of the Monticello Assn. “It will give some foundation to what’s been speculation and rumor until now.”

Arlington, Va., history enthusiast and aspiring author Winifred Bennett contacted Foster with the idea of genetic testing.

“It just struck me that if they can do DNA on [the remains of Russian Princess] Anastasia Romanov, then they could do DNA on Jefferson,” said Bennett, who helped track the descendants who were included in the testing and interviewed them for a book she is preparing to write with Foster’s help.

Foster said the results are not due back until later this year and will be revealed in a scientific journal.

The DNA was taken from six men who believe that they are descendants of a Jefferson-Hemings liaison, five descendants of Jefferson’s paternal uncle, three descendants of the Carr family and five who are controls--descendants of families not known to have been related to Jefferson or Hemings.

Researchers took samples only from men because they are looking for common markers on the Y chromosome, which is passed virtually unchanged from father to son. Because Jefferson had no surviving male children, researchers are tracing the DNA through his paternal uncle’s line of descendants, who would have the same Y chromosome.

Even if a genetic match is made, it would not prove Jefferson fathered Hemings’ children, though it would be highly suggestive. “If they get a match with Jefferson and Hemings’ family, then I’m prepared to say that proves it beyond a reasonable doubt,” Ellis said. “But no matter what we find out in DNA studies, it will ignite another round of controversy without resolving the matter. We have too much invested in talking about this.”