Based upon media hype, have you had doubts about the sensational misinformation that came at you about the amateur Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study? Earlier posts by Mr. Adams explained the problems with assuming Thomas Jefferson to be guilty.
Summary: A blue ribbon Scholars Commission was formed (13 prominent scholars), and for one year extensive research concluded that there is NO PROOF that Thomas Jefferson fathered ANY Hemings or Woodson child.
The Pike County, Ohio newspaper article, that interviewed Madison Hemings was relied heavily upon by some researchers was greatly flawed. In one major instance Madison (whose Hemings descendants REFUSE to authorize testing of his son, William because they would rather use the ORAL history, states that he was named by Dolley Madison on the date of his birth at Monticello on January 19, 1805. Recent research reflects that on this cold, icy date Dolly was in Washington with husband, James Madison, and she was acting as Hostess for Mr. Jefferson in the White House. The Madisons NEVER traveled from Washington to Virginia in the winter…NEVER. To further degrade Mrs. Madison and whites in general, Madison claims that Dolley had promised his mother a gift which Dolley never carried through with, BUT white people did that all the time, he states. The other political newspaper in the county, the Waverly Watchman, completely took the Pike County Republican to task for this story.
Based upon three years of extensive research, the Monticello Association (Thomas Jefferson descendants) voted overwhelmingly to disallow requests for membership to families using ORAL history for admittance. This oral history pays handsomely because of sale of misleading books, personal appearances, etc. The false reporting has been the subject of numerous plays, television appearances, telivision and film productions.
“Still, think where this leaves us. Hemings’s youngest son wasn’t born until 1808. The most obvious interpretation of the DNA results is that Jefferson didn’t father Tom, the kid who inspired the initial rumor, but he did father the kid who was born six years after the scandal broke. Doesn’t that seem odd?”
Could it be that Sally had sexual relations around 9 months before Tom was born, and also with other relatives of Thomas Jefferson? Jefferson may have erroneously assumed he had been the father of that kid responsible for the scandal, not knowing relatives of his were also having sex with Sally. Hence why he freed all of the kids by Sally, as they could have been his.
Further, if Thomas Jefferson did father Thomas Woodson, it would only take one of Thomas Woodson’s purported male descendents along the line actually being fathered by someone else to not get a DNA match.
Neither the DNA evidence nor the circumstantial evidence is enough to prove Jeffersonian paternity, but the two combined is enough to get child support awarded in almost any state (not that Jefferson had any money). I think it is far more unlikely that a man known for his passions (both carnal and otherwise) would have spent the last 30 years of his life celibate than that he would have taken as concubine a slave woman who reminded him of his ex-wife. (There is a painting in the parlor of Monticello of the patriarch Abraham receiving his concubine Hagar from wife Sarah, incidentally; given that Jefferson was not particularly religious [to put it mildly] and that his first wife requested on her deathbed that he never remarry, it is possible he saw Sally as his wife’s surrogate.)
Also, Jefferson admitted his admiration of mulatto women in his preface to this book.
It’s interesting, though, that Sally was a half-sister of Jefferson’s wife Martha Wayles Skelton–the two women had the same father. (Martha, I think, died sometime around 1790.)
