EAllusion wrote:Stak -
Any idea where you got that impression? I ask because the Jefferson genetic testing was used as an illustrative example in a genetics class I was in when the 2000 report came out. I don't remember that being the case then.
I think it was something like this:
Modern Research and Interpretations
The November 5, 1998 issue of Nature exploded onto the evening news with the headline, "Jefferson Fathered Slave's Last Child." Due to the fact that any males carry a XY chromosome (in order to be male) and females carry XX, the son of any union of two people must inherit his Y chromosome from his male parent. The test, in question, follows the Y-chromosome in an unbroken chain from father to son. However, since Jefferson had no surviving sons from his marriage, his Y-chromosome cannot be followed directly from Jefferson through his legal heirs. Nonetheless, Jefferson had to inherit his Y-chromosome from his father, Peter, who in turn, of course, inherited it from his father, also named Thomas. So, it became the task of the researchers to find an unbroken male line of Jeffersons originating from the same source as President Jefferson. To do this they followed unbroken male lines of Field Jefferson, President Jefferson's paternal uncle. The Y-chromosome that they followed had a bi-allelic marker that was typically European. Furthermore, the microsatellite haplotype was so rare that "it has not been found in 670 European men" and "it has never been observed outside the Jefferson family."
Do these results conclude absolutely that Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemings's children? No, these results demonstrate that the most likely sire of Eston Hemings (the source for unbroken male line of the Hemings) was a male line descendent of Thomas Jefferson's grandfather, of whom Thomas Jefferson was but one. It is through this gap in the currently available scientific knowledge that Herbert Barger, Jefferson genealogist, has plunged. Barger promotes "seven other Jeffersons, any one of which could have fathered Eston Hemings." Apparently, six of these seven are "Thomas'[s] younger brother, Randolph Jefferson" and his five sons whom, Barger points out, "lived about 20 miles away . . . One of these sons, Isham, was `reared' by Jefferson according to the History of Todd Co., Ky." Further, Barger states that:
Thomas's first cousin, once removed, George Jefferson, Jr., educated by Thomas, his agent and manager in Richmond and who must have come to Monticello to discuss business when Thomas came home Could this possibly explain why Sally became pregnant only when Thomas was at Monticello.
Although Barger presents all seven men whose Y-chromosome genetic markers were the same as that of President Thomas Jefferson and Eston Hemings, he primarily champions Randolph Jefferson as the probable culprit in Sally's pregnancies:
My study indicates to me that Thomas Jefferson was NOT the father of Eston or any other Hemings child. The study indicates that Randolph is possibly the father of Eston and the others. Randolph, named for his maternal Randolph family, was a widower and between wives when shortly after his wife's death, Sally became pregnant with her first child, Harriet I. . . She continued having children until 1808 when Eston was born, Randolph Jefferson would marry his second wife the next year, 1809, and would have a child, John, born about 1810. Three of Sally Hemings'[s] children, Harriet, Beverly and Eston (the latter two not common names), were given names of the Randolph family who had earlier owned Randolph's plantation, "Snowden", and who had received it as his inheritance.
Barger, also, states, "I don't suppose there would be any reason for Randolph to visit Monticello except when Thomas would come home."
As to Randolph's sons, Randolph Jefferson married his first wife, Anne Jefferson Lewis, on July 30, 1780. If their first child was a male and was born nine months to a year later, his birthday would fall between late April and August 1781. In order for the oldest son of Randolph and Anne Jefferson to have fathered Sally's Harriet, he needed to have intercourse with the twenty-one year old Sally in January 1795 when he would have been at most thirteen. This scenario is not physiologically impossible, albeit distasteful. However, since this child, if he was the Isham to whom Barger refers, was the oldest of Randolph's children and was so young, one can feel fairly safe in eliminating, at very least, the rest of Randolph's sons as sources of the unique Jefferson Y-chromosome haplotype. Since this was the case, Barger's choice of Randolph as the likely father, appears to be the more reasonable candidate.
SAUCE