The DNA is complicated. There are two men alive today who claim to be descendants of Sally Hemings; one has same DNA markers as TJ; the other does not; so there are two possibilities.
One is that the second man IS a descentant of Sally and that she had children with someone other than Jefferson. Because we know she only had children 9 months after she was in the same household as TJ, this would would mean that while she was in the same house with Jefferson she was having sex with some other white man (since all her children were clearly fathered by a white man according to all witnesses at the time).
The second (and more plausible) answer is that the second man is not actually a direct descentand of Sally Hemings. Over 200 years it is easy sto lose track of exact relationship and it is always possible someone other the the supposed father was actually the father of a child long after Jefferson and Sally were dead, thus breaking the DNA chain.
The second answer seems more plausible because it would seem odd that Jefferson would be home and some other white man would be in bed with his house servant.
Paul Finkelman
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
and Public Policy
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, New York 12208-3494
518-445-3386
[log in to unmask]
>>> "Lyle E. Browning" <[log in to unmask]> 10/12/08 8:33 PM >>>
Waitaholdit. If SH had a child by someone whose DNA is not a Jefferson
and one by someone whose was a Jefferson, that perforce indicates two
fathers. IF the non-Jefferson child was hers, that is. As it stands
now DNA says that some Jefferson fathered one child, and one was not
part of the Jefferson lineage. You can't cross that line of argument
to go where you state. If one isn't part of the Jefferson lineage,
then it does prove, if the child was indeed SH's, that SH had children
by more than 1 male.
If a Jefferson had been the father, the DNA would have so indicated,
however diluted.
Lyle Browning
On Oct 12, 2008, at 8:04 PM, Paul Finkelman wrote:
> We can agree with all but number 6 which is not proved; that is the
> DNA test on one of the alleged descendants of Sally Hemings did not
> match TJ's DNA but this does not prove that TJ did not father all of
> Sally's children, it may prove that somewhere along the way someone
> else was the father or mother of a child and it broke the TJ DNA
> line but that teh family did not know this; these things happen over
> time and in many families.
>
> For 8 it is ALL the pregnancies we know of.
>
> On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:01 AM, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Let us see if we can agree on some basic facts--what can we say
>> about Sally
>> Hemings that no one is likely to dispute.
>>
>> 1. She was a slave.
>> 2. She belonged to Thomas Jefferson
>> 3. She had several children
>> 4. She was the half sister of Jefferson's wife
>> 5. She accompanied Jefferson to France
>> 6. She had children by more than one man
>> 7. The father of one of her children 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, his paternal uncles,
>> and his
>> paternal cousins
>> 8. Most (all?) of Heming's pregnancies correspond with times when
>> Jefferson was at Monticello
>> 9. During the years when Hemings was having children, Jefferson
>> was rarely
>> at Monticello
>>
>> Can we agree that we know these things with reasonable certitude?
>>
>> All best,
>> Kevin
>> Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
>> Department of History
>> James Madison University
>>
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>
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>
> Paul Finkelman
> President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
> and Public Policy
> Albany Law School
> 80 New Scotland Avenue
> Albany, New York 12208-3494
>
> 518-445-3386
> [log in to unmask]
>
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the
> instructions at
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