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Posted on 09/23/2026 1:49:08 PM PDT by JSM_Liberty
It was a rather dreary October afternoon in 2011 when I turned to my computer to watch a rough cut of Jefferson’s Secret Bible, a documentary for the Smithsonian cable television channel. I was the Under Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the film was about the conservation of a precious artifact, a book known as the “Jefferson Bible” that would soon go on display at the National Museum of American History. After his retirement to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson had carefully cut out selected passages from Greek, Latin, French and English versions of the Bible, then pasted them in four parallel columns on loose sheets of paper and had them bound into a volume. I watched the re-enactor who played America’s third president use a small razor-sharp penknife to select his chosen biblical passages by candlelight. As I imagined trying to accomplish the task myself, I thought, “I’d probably cut myself over and over again.” That was when another, much bigger thought dawned on me. I emailed Harry Rubenstein, the curator at the museum leading the project: “Given all of that cutting and pasting Jefferson did on the Bible—have we ever looked for any possible transfer of biological material from which we could extract DNA?” ...
His response was swift: “We found a couple of hairs in the book.”
I told Rubenstein what I’d realized. If we had Jefferson’s hair and scientists could find a way to sequence his DNA, we might be able to solve one of the most enduring mysteries in American history: Did Thomas Jefferson have children with the enslaved Sally Hemings?
Jefferson and his beloved wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, had six children, but only two—Martha and Maria—survived past early childhood. When his wife became fatally ill, Jefferson is said to have promised her he’d never remarry. She died in 1782, at the age of 33. ... Historians would debate Madison’s account for the next century, but there was no physical evidence until 1998, when the pre-eminent scientific journal Nature published a research report. The paper’s principal author, Eugene Foster, had been unable to access Jefferson’s remains or analyze his DNA. Instead, he focused on the Y chromosome that is passed down from fathers to sons. He obtained DNA samples from living male-line descendants of Thomas Jefferson’s paternal uncle (because Thomas Jefferson had no sons with Martha who survived infancy), as well as others thought to be descendants of Sally Hemings. A descendant of Sally Hemings through her son Eston had the same Y chromosome type as the Jefferson males—meaning his ancestor was a Jefferson. ...
Because Foster and his team didn’t have Thomas Jefferson’s actual DNA, their analysis could not determine with scientific certainty which Jefferson had been Eston’s father.
...
On May 18, 2017, we heard from Shapiro. “Hi team TJ! We got a mitochondrial match!!!” her email began. The mtDNA from one of the latest historical Monticello hair samples—also clipped by Trist on the day of Jefferson’s death, in 1826—matched Janet McWilliams’ mtDNA. “These are the very preliminary results that we JUST got about ten minutes ago. But I had to share with you guys!” After more than six years of finding hairs; identifying descendants; and collecting, sequencing and analyzing DNA, we finally had strong genetic evidence that the new Monticello hair, not the Bible hair, was Jefferson’s. ...
The next morning, my wife, Allyn, and I drove to see Clara and Pete. The consummate host, Clara served us fresh lemonade on her balcony overlooking the C&O Canal. It was a sunny morning and, for me, an emotional one as I delivered the news. I showed Clara a printout of a DNA chart and told her that she shared a whopping 5 percent of her DNA with Thomas Jefferson. “Clara, you have an extraordinary amount of Thomas Jefferson’s DNA,” I explained. “More than anyone else we sampled. This is overwhelming evidence that you are indeed the great-great-great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.”
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In what way?
Jefferson was opposed to slavery. But he loved his estate more than he hated slavery. As a member of the House of Burghesses he twice voted to abolish slavery in the Virginia Colony but Fat George vetoed it. If slavery had been abolished he would have to free his slaves. Even though he was deeply in debt. And they could remain free. But if he is in debt he *can’t* free his slaves without his creditors suing to take his slaves as payment. So unless he wanted his slaves to go to other masters, which he didn’t, he was forced to give up his estate.
He worked hard to reduce his number of slaves, which even exacerbated his debt, then his father-in-law having no idea why he had so few slaves ‘gifted’ Jefferson with some of his own to ‘help’ Tom out. Which made Jefferson’s goal even harder.
But Jefferson was against slavery and worked to free as many of his slaves as he could his whole life. But he died in debt so never accomplished his goal.
Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from the maternal line. A mother passes it on to all of her children.
There never has been proof that Thomas fathered Hemings’ children. Only that a Randolph male did. There were several of those who could have been the father.
Muslims routinely hump their goats, is it really that far-fetched that a slave owner might have humped his female slaves?
That is true. Without a follicle all you have is keratin. No DNA.
His brother had a local reputation of helping himself to the noncontract female help!
The point of this article is that we have the basis *you* point out from the mitochondrial DNA, but with the hair we now have DNA that is *not* mitochondrial. If you want to believe Tom had Randolph’s hair in his book, that’s fine, but the claim here is that we’re start with Tom’s actual DNA, not tracing mitochondrial DNA through matrilineal descent.
As I understand, you can get mitochondrial DNA from the hair shaft. But that’s not useful to prove that Thomas was the father of Hemings’ children.
https://scienceinsights.org/can-you-get-dna-from-cut-hair/
I really, really hate completely worthless sentences like that one.
They are both dead. Get over it. What does it matter? Will the Commies use this in the midterms to rail against Trump? /sarc
Where do they claim, in the article, that they have proof that they’ve rendered nuclear DNA from Thomas’ hair?
DNA from a couple of hairs in his Bible. How do they know those are not his brother’s hairs?
Randolph Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s brother, has been considered a possible father of Sally Hemings’s children.
the only reason the Smithsonian is pursuing this is because they hate America and are looking to tarnish the reputation of Thomas Jefferson.
But even if they were his children, so what.
The private correspondence between Randolph and Thomas is very telling.
The two were very different in terms of intellect and nature.
The point has always been to tear down an American Icon.
Then I read this American Thinker article years ago titled "The Jefferson Bible Hoax".
It looks like a good article. I will read it when I have more time.
The fact that Jefferson appreciated Jesus as a *philosopher* is no indication of what he may have believed or disbelieved about Jesus otherwise.
Yes they were!
Who said it wasn’t?
Weird non-sequitur on your part.
.
“Hated” skews things. Would it be correct to simply say that he disbelieved?
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