Mr Wiencek - your explanation is exact and accurate as we know it to be.  But the List question dealt with a legal institution of marriage not with the taking of a concubine/mistress.  It was a law written about a widow(er) marrying an in-law; laws do not govern all matters behind the closed door.  The law could have been as much about all the legal entanglements of two people merging estates, inheritances, land claims as it could be about the confusion of what to call your cousin, now your stepbrother/sister.  But the law had nothing to do with who bore children with whom, how or why.

Thomas Jefferson married only Martha Wayles Skelton.

Katie Holland
Silver Spring, MD


In a message dated 2/6/2006 8:39:32 AM Eastern Standard Time, Henry Wiencek <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>According to the family history Madison Hemings gave in an interview,
>Jefferson's wife, Martha, and Sally Hemings were both the daughters of John
>Wayles; so they were half sisters.  Sally's mother was the slave Elizabeth
>"Betty" Hemings.
>
>This is what Madison Hemings said:
>
>"Elizabeth Hemings grew to womanhood in the family of John Wales, whose wife
>dying she (Elizabeth) was taken by the widower Wales as his concubine, by
>whom she had six children--three sons and three daughters, viz: Robert,
>James, Peter, Critty, Sally and Thena. These children went by the name of
>Hemings."
>
>There are many problems with the oral history given by Madison Hemings--this
>is a subject I am researching right now--but I don't yet see any strong
>reason to question this particular statement about the blood tie between
>Martha and Sally.
>
>Henry Wiencek
>Charlottesville
>
>> Didn't Thomas Jefferson basically marry his deceased wife's half  sister?
>>
>
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