Herbert is correct in his remarks about the possibility. And Sandy is
certainly a red-head nickname. And his final point about the DNA
testing is the one that all should take away from this discussion.
Without additional testing, all the analysis of existing and known
documents will not settle the issue.
Science rules, OK.
Lyle Browning, RPA
On Oct 29, 2008, at 11:57 AM, Anne Pemberton wrote:
> Herb,
>
> You are committing the sin that you accuse others of ... lots of
> maybes in your remark, none of which you can prove. You can't even
> prove that there was a red-headed slave on the property. A name
> doesn't establish any fact whatsoever. You seem anxious to jump on
> almost anything that could be made into an excuse for Jefferson's
> paternity.
>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Herbert Barger" <[log in to unmask]
> >
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2008 11:15 AM
> Subject: Re: New Presidential Descendant Claimant
>
>
> Mr Corneliussen is absolutely correct that it is "possible" that a
> slave
> inherited from Peter Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson's father) could have
> carried the Jefferson DNA from past Jefferson males. This slave's
> name was
> "SANDY", a name that denotes reddish hair, and this man could have
> fathered
> a male heir who "may" have been a father to some of Sally's
> children. Please
> remember that only ONE Hemings family member was DNA tested.
>
> Herb Barger
> Jefferson Family Historian
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Steven T. Corneliussen
> Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 7:32 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] New Presidential Descendant Claimant
>
> 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.)
>
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