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I'm not convinced either way on this. I lean more toward believing that Jefferson did father Hemings children. However, that doesn't make it so. My favorite professor was on the Blue Ribbon Commission, and he has never liked Jefferson. He read all the evidence that the Commission had and, despite his disdain for Jefferson, concluded that Jefferson could not have fathered the Hemings children. He believed Jefferson's migraines, among other things, prohibited him from sexual relations at the time of conception for at least the youngest of Hemings' children.

If Jefferson wasn't intimate with his slave, then who were his women friends? There is a film at Monticello (the welcome center or museum or whatever it is) that mentions Jefferson having an affair with some married British female while he was a diplomat in Paris. I do not think Jefferson was celibate all those years after that.

Another thing, didn't President Bush welcome the Jefferson and Hemings descendants to the White House right around the time that the Commission's report came out?

I think your professor was undoubtedly right. I think the solid preponderance of the evidence establishes Thomas Jefferson is not the father the Hemmings children. I'm not sure why you see it as an open question when an historian you respect, who dislikes Jefferson but looked at all the evidence carefully, concludes Jefferson could not have been the father.

What I find interesting is that our actual understanding after the Blue Ribbon Commission, hasn't really advanced much from what Dumas Malone wrote some 50 years ago: it was a Jefferson male, but almost certainly not Thomas.

The story about Jefferson having mistresses in Paris (this was after the death of his wife) is almost certainly true: he was celebrated in France and moved in the highest social circles and most elite salons, and many attractive aristocratic women wanted him.

An interesting comment on Sally comes, as you may recall, from Abigail Adams, who met Sally in London as she accompanied Jefferson's daughter to France (sometime after Jefferson). Adams thought she was an immature teen-aged child, hardly able to act effectively as Miss Jefferson's servant. Sally apparently was given the opportunity for some education during her time in Paris. (That would be consistent with her being Jefferson's wife's half-sister). Those who knew her and knew Jefferson at the time found the notion of an affair (alleged by Callendar) risable.

There is a film at Monticello (the welcome center or museum or whatever it is) that mentions Jefferson having an affair with some married British female while he was a diplomat in Paris.

That was Maria Cosway. She and her husband were both portrait painters.

Ben Franklin had preceded Jefferson in Paris and was said to have had very many affairs. I don't know about Jefferson, but Franklin's undoubted amorousness puts 18th century life in a different light than most of us got from history textbooks.