DNA Analysis Adds Evidence Jefferson Fathered Hemings Children

A new DNA analysis provides the strongest evidence yet that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, a woman he enslaved at Monticello. Researchers analyzed DNA recovered from a packet of Jefferson’s hair and compared it with genetic samples from Jefferson family descendants and descendants of Hemings’s children, Madison and Eston. The team concluded there was less than a 0.001 percent chance Jefferson was not the father of both men, addressing objections that earlier Y-chromosome evidence could have pointed to another Jefferson male relative. The findings culminate 15 years of research led by Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin and are detailed in his new book, History by a Hair. The conclusion intensifies the historical reckoning over the contradiction between Jefferson’s declaration that “all men are created equal” and his enslavement of hundreds of people, including Hemings and their children.