‘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.
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.
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.
bkmk
Hasn’t this been well known for a long time?
Not sure why it’s “news” today.
Yeah... Sure...
Jefferson’s gravestone inscription listed three accomplishments:
“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson”
“Author of the Declaration of American Independence”
“of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom”
“Father of the University of Virginia”
Curious that nothing about being President or Governor of Virginia.
In practical terms, it means nobody else with proven expertise in the field has yet challenged the assumptions in this article.
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