[E. Pluribus Unum]

Shades of the Sally Hemmings hoax.

[Stormdog]

I’ll believe it when he gets hired to be the face of 7-11.

[muawiyah]

Y chromosomes are passed from father to son. mtDNA are passed from mothers to sons and daughters. The Hemmings hoax simply ignores the fact that every Jefferson male in the county had exactly the same Y chromosome. Here we have an established female lineage going back a number of generations to SOMEBODY IN INDIA, and lo and behold, it's of a type found only there.

So, if it's not that Indian it's gotta' be another Indian ~ and a female to boot!

The term "Scottish merchant in India" means "Sailor on shore leave in India" ~ lots of 'em.

[grania]

...the Sally Hemmings hoax

I was on a cruise on which Rita Dove (Clinton's poet laureate) was a speaker. She had done a book-long poem that got into a thing about Charles Hightower, a fraudulent "black prince" who was a helluva violin player.

There's some evidence that she mentioned that not only did Jefferson go to a Charles Hightower concert while he was in France, but that Sally Hemmings was on that trip and in that audience. I don't know if that aspect is true, but I do tend to believe that Sally Hemmings did father some Jefferson children.