Thomas Jefferson Gets Some New Kids
Historians have long debated whether Thomas Jefferson had a
sexual relationship with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings. Now
we have an answer. Retired pathologist Eugene Foster collected
blood samples from 14 men, black and white, who claim to be
descended from Jefferson. The distinctive, largely unchanging Y
(male) chromosomes of Jefferson's white descendants, Foster
writes in this week's Nature, almost precisely match those of
descendants of Hemings' last son, Eston, who was born at
Monticello in 1808. They do not match those of her first son,
long thought to be Jefferson's, or those of Jefferson's two
nephews, who were often said to have sired Hemings' children.