1999/01/08 by Eliot Marshall · 1 citation
Medicine · #Reproductive Health and Technologies #Credibility #Genealogy #History #Political science #Law
paper · doi:10.1126/science.283.5399.153a
openalex publication_date 1999/01/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
The claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one child by his slave Sally Hemings got a big boost in credibility last November when scientists published some stunning new data. A U.S. pathologist and a group of prominent European molecular biologists announced in Nature that they had found DNA sequences in the Y chromosome of the Jefferson family that matched DNA from the Hemings family. The finding set off a flood of news reports declaring that the third U.S. president had, as rumored, fathered an illegitimate child by Sally Hemings. But now the authors of the report say the evidence for that is less than conclusive.