Herbert,

I will reinterate. As long as there is NO PROOF that Thomas Jefferson was 
the father, and as long as THIS PARTICULAR oral history stands, I will 
choose in favor of the oral history. Far too often in this country, we have 
chosen to reject the great oral histories of races for whom oral history was 
an important means of maintaining their history. Until or unless it can be 
proven that Thomas Jefferson did not father the Heming children in 
questions, I will stick by the oral history.

There is an oral history in my own family, that a great-great grandmother 
was Lenne Lenape. The geneologists in the family say that it cannot be 
"PROVEN", yet if you look at some of the faces in the family, the evidence 
is right in front of your nose.

Think also of the famed story of the Lost Colony at Roanoke. Native American 
oral history explains it nicely (as someone once shared on this list when 
the subject came up). But, some will reject the authority of oral history 
because it is oral history and not written down. Being written down does no 
necessarily make anything of certain "Truth". A careful reading of the 
Jamestown Narratives and comparison to archeological evidence on the 
lifestyle of the Powhatan, puts the bosh on any idea of "truth" being only 
conveyed in the written record.

Anne

Anne Pemberton
[log in to unmask]
http://www.erols.com/apembert
http://www.educationalsynthesis.org 

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