Professor Finkelman:

You state as a matter of belief that Jefferson "held his own children in
slavery as well has his half-sister-in-law (Sally Hemings) and his
half-brothers-in-law."

For Sally Hemings to be Jefferson's sister-in-law, you accept, without the
slightest proof, that she was the
daughter of John Wayles, and sister to Martha Jefferson.  Since Betty
Hemings (Sally's mother) had multiple
children by multiple men, you apparently assign the paternity of at least
two of her boys, again without the slightest proof,
to John Wayles. The only two you could be referring to are James Hemings
and John Hemings, who were in fact freed by Jefferson in 1796 and 1794,
respectively. By Jefferson's "own children," you mean the four adult
children of the enigmatic Sally Hemings. Of course, the "link" here, is a
belief that the DNA test of the descendants of Jefferson's uncle to Sally
Hemings' youngest son Eston is proof of the paternity of Thomas Jefferson;
otherwise, not a glance, not word between Jefferson and Hemings is recorded
by an observer in over thirty years together at Monticello. Even The Thomas
Jefferson Foundation , which floated the initial "single father" postulate,
gathering all of Hemings' children under a single paternity, has now
stepped back and concludes that "the evidence is not definitive, and the
complete story may never be known."


Richard E. Dixon
Clifton, VA 20124-2115
703-830-8177
fax 703-691-0978

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