Dr. Watkinson and other researchers,

May I say that I wish you were as doggedly aggressive on this issue as was your
grandfather, Virginus Dabney. We need more people who know their Jefferson and
who have carefully studied his life. They just did not have the modern day DNA
to back up their research that we have today. Since their time we HAVE found
that Callender's Campaign Lies were just that. There was NO Jefferson/Woodson
DNA match. Out of all this we find a match between SOME Jefferson DNA and the
DNA of Eston Hemings. This is not to say that the Jefferson DNA in the blood of
the Eston Hemings descendant would necessarily have to be from any known
Jefferson BUT could have come through a slave inherited from Thomas Jefferson's
father, Peter Jefferson (one mulatto was). who may have had "A" Jefferson father
earlier. Then such slave could have a male descendant who COULD be the father of
Sally's children. This is just a possibility and cited to show just how
preposterous it is to jump at quick solutions. Yes, Thomas Jefferson, like the
rest of us, was a human being and a great one at that, but that doesn't place
him in a category of rapist, etc. that some historical revisionists would like
to have the public believe.

I disagree that your grandfather and Dumas Malone would be dogging Thomas
Jefferson because their long and detailed research convinced them already that
he was innocent of the charges. I would imagine that they all may be saying,
"Look how today's politically correct historical revisionists are STILL
believing in ORAL history that has scientifically been disproved by NO such
match."

As a grandson of the famous Virginus Dabney I would like to invite you to join
those of us defending the thoughts of your grandfather and all he stood for.

Herb Barger
Jefferson Family Historian


Jim Watkinson wrote:

> As a historian, It never ceases to amaze me that some of those in the field
> and the public at large are confounded when our "great men" turn out to be
> flesh-and-blood human beings with all the foibles that accompany that
> condition.
>
> As a collateral descendent of Jefferson, I do not think I could care less
> about whether or not he enjoyed a sexual relationship with Sally Hemmings.
> While it might make him a hypocrite in some sense, it certainly does not
> detract from his other enormous accomplishments.
>
> On a lighter note, as the grandson of the man, Virginius Dabney, who wrote
> the last "defense" of Jefferson, _The Jefferson Scandals_, I suspect that if
> there is an afterlife, my grandfather and Dumas Malone, among others, are
> dogging Mr. Jefferson, and asking some very pointed questions.
>
> Jim Watkinson
>
> James D. Watkinson, Ph.D.
> Library of Virginia
> History Department, Randolph-Macon College
>
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