(In my view this discussion is important, and so I ask for forgiveness from
those like DF Mills who find it screamworthy, and I hope that they will
simply press "delete.")
I'd like to offer a comment in reply to Peter Henriques, but because the
reply gets into the details again, I'd like first to recommend an answer to
Lyle Browning, who called quite sensibly for "a refresher course at the
satellite level."
For that I, for one, would recommend Maura Singleton's fine article in the
U.Va. Magazine last year, which transgresses a bit on the science stuff, but
in my view nevertheless answers Mr. Browning quite well. It's easy to find
online. Even Professor Bob Turner liked it -- so well, in fact, that he said
so in one of the several letters that appeared in the subsequent issue.
(And while I'm on the subject of Hemings-TJ overviews and recaps, I'll also
note that it's 2008, and so later this year, it seems to me, we'll begin
seeing ten-year DNA anniversary articles. That would mean a lot more of this
extraordinarily complex discussion, likely elevating the coefficient of
screamworthiness still more. I'll add that it also seems to me that this
time, contrarian journalists will be questioning a conventional wisdom
reversed from the conventional wisdom from before 1998. That is, this time,
contrarians looking for a story will hype paternity disbelief.)
Plunging back into details:
Paternity disbelievers actually do offer a few bits of evidence of pre-1998
interest in non-Carr paternity candidates, including even a play produced in
Chapel Hill in the 1980s, if I remember right (and as Professor Henriques
might already know). In any case, the question always calls to my mind this
thought: Fundamental to Annette Gordon-Reed's entire argument was her very
persuasive charge that until 1998, scholars generally, and disrespectfully,
spurned the entire paternity question -- everything about it. So if the
overall paternity question itself was being mainly ignored before 1998, why
would there have been much sifting of paternity candidates?
I suppose one answer could be that what happened or didn't happen among
historians is not the same as what happened elsewhere, but as I say, the
paternity disbelievers do have a few answers about that.
Steven T. Corneliussen
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Henriques" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2008 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Response to Mr. Barger
>I would be interested in seeing clear, checkable evidence that people like
> Mr. Barger were suggesting that Randolph was the likely father of Sally
> Hemings' children BEFORE the publication of the DNA results. From my
> perspective,
> this appears to be a case of people who "know" Thomas Jefferson could not
> have
> been the father frantically looking for another possibility once it
> became
> irrefutable that a male member of the Jefferson family was the father of
> Eston. It is also interesting to wonder why all of Sally's children were
> conce
> ived nine months after Jefferson was at Monticello, despite the fact that
> he was
> often gone for significant periods of time. Purely a coincidence?
>
> Peter Henriques
>
> Professor of History, Emeritus
> George Mason University
>
>
>
>
>
> **************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on
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