After more than two centuries of speculation and debate, new genetic analysis strongly supports the conclusion that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who was approximately 30 years younger than the nation’s third president.
The findings come from a comprehensive project led by Richard Kurin, a distinguished scholar and ambassador-at-large for the Smithsonian Institution. Kurin spent 15 years searching for reliable Jefferson DNA to resolve paternity questions that have long complicated assessments of his legacy regarding slavery and race.
“Thomas Jefferson wrote the most famous phrase in American history — ‘All men are created equal’ — and yet, if he bore children with Sally Hemings who were born into slavery, it seemed like a paradox and a contradiction,” Kurin told NPR’s Michel Martin.
The investigation, detailed in Kurin’s new book “History by a Hair,” involved scientists, archaeologists, genealogists, forensic experts, and descendants of both Jefferson and Hemings. While previous DNA testing in the late 1990s linked Jefferson’s male-line descendants to Eston Hemings, Sally Hemings’ youngest son, skeptics argued those results could also point to other male Jefferson relatives, such as cousins or brothers.
Kurin enlisted researchers Beth Shapiro and Richard “Ed” Green from the University of California, Santa Cruz, to focus strictly on scientific evidence without moral judgment. Early in the process, the team discovered that strands of hair found in Jefferson’s personal Bible did not actually belong to him.
However, further examination of Monticello collections revealed a packet labeled as Jefferson’s hair, cut on the day of his death, July 4, 1826. This sample provided the key to sequencing his genome.
“A rich lock of hair… looked very rich and that hair yielded DNA,” Kurin said. “That was the key to sequencing his DNA.”
With this conclusive sample, the new analysis identified significant genetic matches between Jefferson and descendants of Madison Hemings and Eston Hemings. “We know that there are descendants of Madison Hemings and Eston Hemings that have a whole lot of Thomas Jefferson DNA,” Kurin noted, adding that the Hemings descendants carried more Jefferson DNA than some known Jefferson lineage descendants.
Kurin stated that the DNA evidence definitively answers the paternity question: “The DNA speaks for itself.”
The study could not trace connections to Sally Hemings’ other two children, Harriet and Beverly, who left Monticello in 1822, passed as white, and had families whose descendants are largely unknown. Kurin hopes to eventually make Jefferson’s genome publicly available to help others explore obscured heritage.
A scientific paper detailing the research is currently under review for publication.
It’s fascinating that Kurin spent fifteen years just hunting for reliable samples before the science could even begin.
I thought this was settled in the 90s. Did the earlier tests not account for other Jefferson male relatives properly?
Wait, they found usable DNA in a lock of hair after two centuries? Science is absolutely wild sometimes.
This really brings the hypocrisy of the ‘all men created equal’ quote into sharp focus. Uncomfortable but necessary history.