Replies

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.

They weren't able to trace DNA descendants for all of her children. One line had Jefferson DNA (but whether it was Thomas or one of his male Jefferson relatives who is the ancestor cannot be proven from the DNA). Another line apparently goes back to one of his Carr nephews (sons of his sister, who had been suspected of fathering Sally's children in the past), but that was pretty much ignored when the DNA results were announced in 1998 (at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal).

Fawn Brodie managed to find a newspaper interview with Madison Hemings, a son of Sally Hemings, who claimed that Thomas Jeffeson was his father--but said that Jefferson never treated him as his son. The 1870 census taker wrote in the margin next to Madison Hemings' name "This man is the son of Thomas Jefferson" so clearly that is what Madison told him.

Of course Madison himself did not know for sure--only knew what his mother told him.

Ann Coutler’s take is interesting:
https://anncoulter.com/2019/07/03/was-thomas-jefferson-on-the-duke-lacrosse-team1/

The recent findings are based a a new scientific method which allowed the scientists to map the entire Thomas Jefferson DNA using; hair without follicles. A 2019 take is irrelevant to the take based on a newer scientific method.

The book by Richard Kurin, History by a Hair, 406 pp. was published yesterday. It provides a detailed review of what was done. I provided a linnk to the full 18 pp. paper submitted to biopRxiv. The newer science has made criticisms based on outdated science obsolete.

https://www.liherald.com/stories/gilgo-dna-evidence-allowed,217179

Hair DNA evidence deemed admissible in Gilgo Beach murder trial
Posted September 3, 2025

In September 2025, Suffolk County Supreme Court Judge Tim Mazzei ruled that Astrea Forensics’ whole genome sequencing method — which extracts SNP data from rootless hairs and creates DNA profiles — is “generally accepted as reliable within the scientific community”. This was the first time such technology was admitted in a New York state court, setting a potential precedent. The judge’s decision relied on expert testimony from University of Washington professor Kelley Harris and Astrea Labs founder Richard Green, and no defense expert contested the method’s reliability.