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In my view Bodleian_Girl has presented compelling evidence that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings children. More, she has presented compelling evidence in an estimable fashion refraining from personal invective or responding to personal invective but rather making resort to the factual records and providing citations for every fact adduced.

The DNA is irrefutable and demonstrates that the children of Sally Hemmings (or at least one or two children) are descended from Thomas Jefferson or, conceivably, his brother Randolph.

It is absurd to believe that the DNA was generated fraudulently to confirm a false narrative. It is important to note that the narrative was created long before the DNA report. Indeed, the narrative was widely published as early as at the turn of the 19th century. It is therefore not possible to argue that the narrative was created to exploit an ambiguity in the DNA.

The DNA fails to contradict the narrative in any respect and in fact confirms the narrative that Thomas Jefferson was the father Sally Hemmings' children.

The historical record, that is contemporary accounts some of them in Thomas Jefferson's own hand, confirm that only Thomas Jefferson could have been the father because he and he alone was in proximity to Sally Hemmings at the times of her conception.

The contemporary records rule out Thomas Jefferson's brother because he was not in proximity to Sally at the times of conception. The DNA rules out the Carr nephews. By the process of elimination, Thomas Jefferson is almost certainly the father in question.

In addition to the narrative, in addition to the DNA, in addition to the contemporary accounts which rule out competing male donors, there are numerous contemporary accounts attesting to physical resemblance of the children to Thomas Jefferson and a general belief by those who are in a position to know that these children of Sally Hemmings were in fact fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

We have the actions of Thomas Jefferson in manumitting two of these children, when he maintained Sally adjacent to his boudoir, when he permitted other of her children simply to walk away from slavery when he failed to free any other slave not related to Sally Hemmings. We have the widespread custom of plantation owners to lie with their female slaves. We have the fact that Sally Hemmings was the half sister of Jefferson's beloved wife. We have many testimonies of the physical beauty of Sally Hemmings. We have her by some accounts acting as the mistress of Monticello in many respects.

Against all of this we have the bland and ridiculous assertions of many on this thread that all of this evidence "would not stand up in any court." Of course most of this evidence would be admissible and it would be persuasive. Against this accumulation of very persuasive evidence there is virtually nothing to the contrary. One can conclude from what we know that the evidence shows by more than a preponderance but indeed by a clear and convincing degree that Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings' children.

[I’m about to make several posts, please wait until I finish posting before responding.]

> The DNA is irrefutable and demonstrates that the children of Sally Hemmings (or at least one or two children) are descended from Thomas Jefferson or, conceivably, his brother Randolph.

Or from any male having the same Y chromosome as Thomas’s paternal uncle Field Jefferson, who was the Jefferson whose descendants were actually tested. Researchers involved in the DNA study have flatly denied that the attribution to Thomas Jefferson is “irrefutable”. The initial claims were overstated.

Wikipedia — “According to an initial report on the findings of a 1998 DNA study which tested the Y-chromosome of direct male-line descendants of Eston Hemings, and other related tests, there is a near 100% certainty that Thomas Jefferson was the biological father of Eston Hemings. These initial claims (that the DNA findings were definitive and conclusive proof of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity) were later retracted by the lead researcher in the case, acknowledging that in fact the DNA testing itself seemed to prove only a one in eight (12.5%) genetic probability of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity.[52][53]”

“After the initial news headlines, it later emerged that conclusive DNA proof had only been made of the near 100% certainty that Eston Hemings was the son of one of 8 different potential paternity candidates within the Jefferson family, one of whom was Thomas Jefferson, which proof the lead researcher, Eugene A. Foster, later clarified.”

“In the Monticello Commission’s report on the paternity question, Dr. David Page, one of the committee’s scientific case reviewers, recommended that additional research needed to be done into ‘the local population structure around Monticello two hundred years ago, as respects the Y chromosome,’ before entirely ruling out the possibility of the paternity of any of the other 7 potential paternity candidates.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson%E2%80%93Hemings_controversy#1998_DNA_study

When it comes to DNA proof, I don’t see why they even need to limit it to eight “known” Jefferson candidates. At this late date it will be hard to know how much of that Y-chromosome was in the — as “one of the committee’s scientific case reviewers” put it — “local population structure around Monticello”. Even mulatto slaves branching off from the Jeffersons in previous generations could have contributed to the Eston Hemings descendant line. All it would have taken was one person (and a few minutes access to Sally Hemings).

True, the other children were said to have a Jefferson family resemblance, but that doesn’t prove specific paternity. As we’ve seen many times on the Maury Povich show — not from hearsay but with photos of the children right in front of us — candidates for paternity who look like the child often turn out not to be the father. When potential candidates are relatives, appearance helps even less.

> It is important to note that the narrative was created long before the DNA report. Indeed, the narrative was widely published as early as at the turn of the 19th century.

Among the charges that received the most contemporary attention was the one about the child who was conceived in Paris (far away from other persons besides Thomas with Jefferson family male DNA), the supposed descendant of whom, according to the scientific tests, turned out not to have any Jefferson family DNA.

> We have her [Sally] by some accounts acting as the mistress of Monticello in many respects.

Please quote those passages and sources (acts beyond being a glorified maid). Even if he’d been having sex with her — bearing in mind the mores of the time — I find that hard to believe.

> Against this accumulation of very persuasive evidence there is virtually nothing to the contrary.

Try this for one voluminous account of that virtually nothing — https://jeffersondnastudy.com/rebuttal-to-tjmf-report/

I agree that there are a good many indications that Thomas Jefferson was the father, but to my eyes they don’t rise to the level of convincing proof.