Herbert,
After I get going on my new category for Famous Americans on the Founding
Fathers, I will look up the article on Madison Hemings that you keep
mentioning. If you have a link to the article, it would be great of you to
share it and save me a search.
Most folks have heard stories in their families about things that happened
at their birth. Last spring, my niece had a little girl, and when I saw the
tiny bundle the next day, she gave me a very pretty smile. A year later, she
is still quite the smiler. When she is grown, I will tell her that she
smiled at me before she was a day old. When she learns that babies do not
have real smiles until they are older, she may discount what I tell her. So
be it. I till tell her anyway!
I tell a nephew, who is now in the throes of adolescence, that he sent his
first email when he was six weeks old, and his mother insists he was older.
He will certainly not remember if it was a six weeks or thirteen weeks, and
it's probably immaterial which memory is right. But the fact is that, gas
notwithstanding, Lilly gave me a pretty smiles, and no matter how many
weeks, Taylor came to the Internet in his infancy. I would have for someone
to hang either of these young folks for repeating one or the other side of
these stories and be misjudged for repeating what they have or will have
heard over and over growing up.
The same applies to Madison's statement of Dolley naming him. Maybe it was
Dolley herself who told the pretty young boy that she had been there at his
birth. And, maybe indeed she misremembered which of Sally's children she was
there to name. We do not know where the mistake came from, we only know that
a mistake was made, and it wasn't by either Madison Hemings, nor, likely, by
the man who wrote the newspaper article. To classify either one a liar or to
discredit the rest of the article without appropriate study, is to fail to
understand the meaning of TRUTH and LIES as well as the humanity of
humanity.
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: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 1:42 PM
Subject: Re: Jefferson's Overseer No proof that the Pike Co. article is
believable
> The "misstatement" made by Wetmore/Madison about his naming is just one
> of several doubtful remarks made in this article. If this one statement
> is wrong....how are we to be expected to believe any of it?
>
> Herb
>
>
> Herb,
>
> I would like to read all those articles you cite, but I'm not sure where
> to
> find them. I will not guarantee that my reading them will lead me to the
>
> conclusions you came from. I do not feel the statement on who was there
> at
> his birth and named him is material enough to negate anything else in
> the
> article.
>
> From the picture in Lanier's book, it seems that the entry was made in
> the
> same handwriting as the list of names. Certainly scientific tests can
> confirm that both the handwriting and the ink were there on the original
>
> signed by the official at the top of the page. Census records are
> valuable
> evidence of when and where people lived and what offspring they had. If
> they
> were typically subject to changes made by unauthorized persons, I would
> imagine they could not be useful in typical geneological research, yet
> they
> are, in the absence of family bibles or actual birth and death
> certificates.
>
> Well, I'm a gonna hit the hay, and we'll pick this up some more
> tomorrow.
>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>
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