Thanks Kevin for your interest and I am sure you seek the truth for your
students. A quick question before I answer your DNA question, do you use
AGR's earlier book in your classroom and do you plan to use this latest
book there? Have you ever used the obviously flawed Shannon Lanier book
there also? You may not know that he visited in my home and I have two
pages of disagreement and that he is one of eight Hemings to REFUSE
gathering DNA from William Hemings. I have information from certain
seats of higher learning that some of these books are used there and
some e-mails are from offended students.
The DNA question clarification:
* The DNA question is most complex in everyone's mind. There are two
major problems with this particular one. Dr Foster, over my objections
and CAUTION of selection of, an Eston source without adequate
information for Nature, Monticello, the media or any interested
researcher, was the BEGINNING of a MAJOR problem. Dr Foster used an
interesting book, Down from the Mountain, Oral History of the Hemings
Family, by Judith Justus, for guidance in Hemings and Woodson research.
Mrs. Justus even visited him in his Charlottesville home and they
discussed possible sources. She again visited him there after the tests
had been run. I had furnished family charts, etc on the Jefferson
participants already. Finally John Weeks Jefferson was chosen as the
SOLE Hemings representative. The Eston family had ALWEAYS claimed
descent from "a Jefferson uncle" meaning Randolph. Eston NEVER claimed
descent from Thomas as Madison had. So testing this source that ALREADY
had the Jefferson DNA DID match the 5 Jefferson participants AS
EXPECTED. So to answer your question, this test proved only one thing:
John Weeks Jefferson, descendant of Eston Hemings, son of Sally, did
have a match with Jefferson DNA, but ONLY that would prove their claim
to be true, NOT to prove it was that of THOMAS.
Foster released DNA, by way of UVA,to the labs in England, the
Netherlands and Belgium and brought forward the ONLY DNA of blood that
had been collected from a KNOWN carrier of the Jefferson DNA, Randolph
Jefferson, (according to Eston family oral history.) Foster did not
inform Nature to this and they "assumed" that this was a "fair"
representative of Jefferson DNA. His SOLE desire was to prove or
disprove the Carr brothers claim that they had long maintained to be
fathers to some of Sally's children. I still believe their claim to be
true for SOME others of her children. This was Dr. Foster's MAIN
objective for the study and there was no Carr/Hemings/Woodson match. In
the absence of other Jefferson DNA and MY caution, Nature not knowing of
my earlier concerns about Randolph and sons, then made a FALSE headline
that they concocted with Dr. Eugene Foster, back and forth, (I have
e-mails from both), they could NOT have stated, "Jefferson fathered
slaves last child" if they would have known of my caution and Randolph
information. But for them to have that, Foster withheld it because that
would make such a headline IMPOSSIBLE. The Washington Truth In Media
founder, immediately called Nature with tough questions and they told
him they could not have said this IF they had known about Randolph. They
told him they knew of NO OTHER Jeffersons.
Dr Foster "sat" on the lab results from June 18, 1998 until they were
released by USNWR and other media outlets at the end of Oct. 1998, just
in time for the election and President Clinton's impeachment trial.
Several writers pointed this out at the time. Dr. Foster said he chose
Nature rather than Science or other American science publications but
they turned him down because of too much early advance publicity. In my
opinion this was rubbish because such publications thrive on publicity,
book and magazine sales, notoriety etc. I tried to get the facts but
Science seemed, in my opinion, to not desire to get into the controversy
and mentioned confidentiality correspondence between themselves and Dr
Foster.
I do believe that the "Y" used at that time "after" the DNA was
presented to them, was correctly analyzed BUT they were testing "staged
and very selective" DNA as mentioned above. Dr Foster and Dan Jordan,
Monticello President had discussed the project, and in fact, when the
media released the findings, Dr. Foster was called to Monticello to
explain the findings in a major media event, HOWEVER in e-mails he had
told me repeatedly that others such as Monticello would have to analyze
the history and tie the two together. YET, HE issued a statement that
the Monticello Study used to describe his "history statement", the
"simplest meaning was that it all points to TJ." So does that make him a
liar, an accomplice in deception, a facilitator of misguided and falsely
manipulated information? We will let the reader decide this.........I
just state facts and have hundreds of e-mails, letters, etc from Foster,
Jordan, Chairman of TJF and many, many other researchers. DNA is
dependable and can be trusted IF properly handled in a professional
manner and BEFORE contrived history is added to make certain misguided
agendas in a climate of political correctness and historical
revisionism. This is where you and our country's other history
professors must hear BOTH sides before teaching such misguided
information.
Herb Barger
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008 11:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
Herb--
In one or two short, simple sentences, can you state what you take the
DNA tests to have proven?
In an earlier post addressed to me, you implied that you did not think
that the DNA tests had proven anything at all. Here, however, you imply
that you believe that they *did* prove something, although you do not
state what that something is that you think they proved. (See the
excerpt from your post, below.)
I would like much to understand your argument. If you could write a
short post that restricts itself to just this one question, that would
be helpful to me.
All best,
Kevin
---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:37:19 -0400
>From: Herbert Barger <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Annette Gordon-Reed praised by Edmund Morgan
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>I have well explained the DNA procedures on this forum and how they
have
>been twisted to fit certain agendas. The DNA is dependable........just
>the authors of politically correct books that lack telling the truth.
Kevin R. Hardwick, Ph.D.
Department of History
James Madison University
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