Steve notes, quite correctly, that it is entirely possible that Jefferson had cousins, uncles, or brothers who were enslaved.  I've addressed this point in earlier eruptions of this controversy, most recently this summer if I recall correctly.  We do not and most likely never will know the full extent of Jefferson's family.  This is a point made also in the Scholar's Report--we know the legitimate descendants of Jefferson's grandfather, but we do not know if Jefferson's grandfather, father, or (free) paternal uncles had children by enslaved women.  Given the secrecy surrounding miscegenation, and the poverty of records about most enslaved people, or for that matter most free people in Virginia in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is most likely we will never really know.  Barring improved and more comprehensive DNA testing, the paternity of Sally Heming's children remains unknowable.  

I will revise the statement to make clear that the men included in the group "Thomas Jefferson, TJ's brother, his paternal uncles, and his paternal cousins" might include some who were enslaved.

All best,
Kevin


>And please forgive me if I'm misinterpreting something related from Kevin
>Hardwick's Oct. 12 revised list of the things that we can "say about Sally
>Hemings that no one is likely to dispute." Item 5 on that revised list
>says that the "father of one of [SH's] children -- Eston Hemings -- was
>descended from Thomas Jefferson's paternal grandfather; that is to say, we
>can narrow the list of possible fathers for this child to Thomas
>Jefferson, TJ's brother, his paternal uncles, and his paternal cousins."
>
>It seems to me that, at a minimum, this phrasing fails to make completely
>clear what is known about the radius of the circle of paternity
>candidates. That complete clarity is important because many participants
>in Hemings-TJ discussions, and almost all participants in the media,
>presume that the circle includes only Jeffersons who were routinely
>acknowledged at the time as members of the extended Jefferson family. In
>my view it's important to stipulate specifically the possibility of
>paternity by some unknown carrier of the Jefferson DNA marker within the
>enslaved population. We know that the DNA marker crossed the race line. We
>do not know whether it crossed the race line in a generation earlier than
>the one that produced Eston Hemings. Now, this may well be an outlandish
>possibility in terms of the historical evidence. But because the DNA
>evidence says nothing whatsoever about it, as a matter of DNA science the
>circle of paternity candidates must actually be defined as wider than the
>circle of males in the known, acknowledged, extended Jefferson family. As
>a matter of DNA science, we simply do not know the radius of the circle of
>paternity candidates. (And yes, here I have repeated myself nearly
>verbatim, but in this case it seemed necessary.)
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University

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