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Posted on 09/23/2026 12:48:56 AM PDT by woodpusher
BioRxiv
The Preprint Server for Biology
The DNA Legacy of Thomas Jefferson
Posted September 21, 2026
Richard E. Green, Samuel H. Vohr, Joshua D Kapp, Jane E. Ailes, Samuel Sacco, Remy Nguyen, James Cahill, Peter D. Heintzman, Joanne Flores, Logan Kistler, Courtney A. Hofman, Robert C. Fleischer, Beth Shapiro, Richard Kurin
doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.18.752809
This article is a preprint and has not been certified by peer review [what does this mean?].
Abstract
Allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of the enslaved Sally Hemings emerged in the context of U.S. presidential politics in the late 1700s and early 1800s and entailed strongly contested denials and affirmations by family members, biographers, and historians ever since. Previous analysis of Y chromosome markers in contemporary members of the Jefferson and Hemings patrilines was consistent with the paternity hypothesis but rejected by those who pointed out that, absent Jefferson DNA and its direct comparison to the DNA of possible descendants, other Jefferson males could have fathered Sally Hemings children. In this study, we developed an innovative technique to recover DNA from multiple rootless hair samples in a museum collection whose provenance, mitochondrial genomes, Y chromosome markers, and identity to each other indicate that these hairs and the DNA from them are from Thomas Jefferson. Using these DNA data, we find clear evidence of Thomas Jefferson ancestry in descendants of both his wife Martha Wayles Jefferson and Sally Hemings. We measured the amount of identical-by-descent DNA shared between Thomas Jefferson and his known and putative descendants. We find that the amount of shared Jefferson DNA is more likely under the model of direct Thomas Jefferson paternity than other proposed scenarios.
Competing Interest Statement
REG is co-founder and paid consultant of Astrea Forensics. SHV is employed by Embark Veterinary, Inc. BS is the chief science officer of Colossal Biosciences.
Funder Information Declared
The Smithsonian provided its own trust funds to support the research.
Copyright
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.18.752809v1.full.pdf
Full report, 18 pp.
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‘A 99.9% Chance’: Smithsonian Scientists Say New DNA Analysis of Thomas Jefferson’s Hair Shows He Fathered Sally Hemings’s Enslaved ChildrenBy Jill Jordan Sieder | Published on: September 22, 2026
A team of researchers at the Smithsonian Institution claim to have resolved the centuries-old historical and scientific debate over whether America’s third President Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, a woman he enslaved, had children together.
The key to their scientific breakthrough: a lock of hair snipped from Jefferson on his deathbed in 1826.
Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin co-authored a new book, “History by a Hair: Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings & Solving a 200-Year-Old Mystery,” set for release on September 22. It describes a 15-year research project that compared Jefferson’s preserved hair to DNA samples from 13 living descendants of Jefferson and Hemings in an effort to provide definitive proof of the genetic relationship between the two.
The findings show “there was a 99.9% chance that Thomas Jefferson had fathered a child of Sally Hemings,” Kurin told Today in an interview on Monday.
[snip]
TJ was the founder of what became the republican party. DJT is a republican. This must be Trumps fault.
Here’s a tagline for you:
“I think...Therefore, I stink.”
Ann Coutler’s take is interesting: https://anncoulter.com/2019/07/03/was-thomas-jefferson-on-the-duke-lacrosse-team1/
One excerpt:
Eston was born in 1808, when Thomas Jefferson was 64 years old and in his second term as president. His brother Randolph was 52, and his five sons were 17 to 24 years old. All of them were frequent visitors at Monticello.
While Jefferson was busy entertaining international visitors in the main house, Randolph would typically retire to the slave quarters to dance and fiddle. One slave, Isaac Granger Jefferson, described Randolph in his dictated memoirs thus: “Old Master’s brother, Mass Randall, was a mighty simple man: used to come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night.”
There is not a single account of Thomas Jefferson frequenting slave quarters. Nor did Jefferson take any interest in Hemings’ children. Randolph did, teaching all of Hemings’ sons to play the fiddle.
Randolph was an unmarried widower when Eston was conceived. After Randolph remarried, Hemings had no more children.
In response to DNA proof that only one of Hemings’ children was related to any Jefferson male — and her firstborn son was definitely NOT fathered by any Jefferson — the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the Monticello Association and the National Genealogical Society promptly announced their official positions: Thomas Jefferson fathered all six of Hemings’ children! Guided tours of Monticello today state the provably false fact that Jefferson fathered all the Hemings’ children.
And I no longer have any trust for the Smithsonian in that time frame.
That has been my understanding for many years.
Given the Smithsonian's highly corrupt views on American history (1619, etc.), I'd suspect this report of bias and inaccuracy until certifiably proved otherwise.
According Wiki...
Thomas Jefferson died 04 July 1826.
Big Deal.
President Jefferson had a nine inch nail and used it con-sensually.
Celebrate !
Great addition to the gene pool along withn Sally Hemming, who loved Jefferson.
NO! Jefferson WAS NOT THE FATHER.
DNA proved beyond a doubt that the child was fathered by a close male relative but not Jefferson.
This whole bullshit smear campaign was deliberately engineered by the Clinton Whitehouse to take some of the heat off him getting oral sex from interns in the Oval Office.
It was a deliberate lie.
NO! Jefferson WAS NOT THE FATHER.
DNA proved beyond a doubt that the child was fathered by a close male relative but not Jefferson.
This whole bullshit smear campaign was deliberately engineered by the Clinton Whitehouse to take some of the heat off him getting oral sex from interns in the Oval Office.
It was a deliberate lie.
NO! Jefferson WAS NOT THE FATHER.
DNA proved beyond a doubt that the child was fathered by a close male relative but not Jefferson.
This whole bullshit smear campaign was deliberately engineered by the Clinton Whitehouse to take some of the heat off him getting oral sex from interns in the Oval Office.
It was a deliberate lie.
Never mind the Muslim slave trade, skip over the warring tribes where the victors sold the defeated into the slave trade. It was the times where the Massy Ferguson of the day was what ever person that could be nabbed was sold into some form of servitude. Lets tell the real story, not the cherry picking.
bkmk
Hasn’t this been well known for a long time?
Not sure why it’s “news” today.
Reality denial, NTSA. TJ fathered her children.
I have never heard that. I have always heard he was the founder of the Democrat party.
He founded the Democratic-Republican party, which is a very different beast from either the Democrat party or the Republican party.
But Jefferson's essential philosophy is much more closely mirrored by the Democrat party of the 1800s than the Republican party.
The Early Republican party is more closely related to Alexander Hamilton than Jefferson. Today, it more closely aligns with Jefferson.
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