New genomic analysis of Thomas Jefferson's hair puts the odds that he fathered neither of Sally Hemings' two sons at less than one in 1,000, closing a debate skeptics have kept alive since the founding era.
Anthropologist Richard Kurin recovered strands of hair linked to Jefferson from between the pages of an unpublished manuscript associated with the third president and subjected them to modern genomic sequencing. His forthcoming book, "History by a Hair," details the results: researchers modeled competing paternity scenarios involving Jefferson, his younger brother Randolph, and Randolph's sons, and the DNA pointed overwhelmingly to Thomas Jefferson as the father of both Madison Hemings and Eston Hemings.
The finding lands on top of a 1998 DNA study that already linked a male-line descendant of Eston Hemings to the Jefferson male line. Historians largely treated that earlier result as dispositive. But a persistent counter-theory held that Randolph Jefferson, not Thomas, could have been the father. Fox News Digital reported that the new analysis effectively eliminates Randolph from contention.
The statistical threshold matters. Kurin's study did not merely favor Jefferson over his brother. It found the probability that Jefferson fathered neither Madison nor Eston was less than one in 1,000, a figure that leaves almost no room for the alternative theories that skeptics have circulated for generations.
Leigh Fought, a professor emerita of history at Le Moyne College in DeWitt, New York, and author of "Sally Hemings: Given Her Time," was not involved in the study. She told Fox News Digital the evidence should end the argument for good.
"This should close the case with a lock. I was already positive that the case should have been closed. No [other historical event], especially of that time, has had to amass this much evidence to say it happened."
Fought addressed the Randolph theory directly.
"This evidence says that's not true either. It was definitely [Thomas] Jefferson."
The relationship between Jefferson and Hemings was not a discovery of modern scholarship. Rumors that Jefferson fathered children with the woman he enslaved at Monticello circulated during his own lifetime. For two centuries, the question persisted, partly because defenders of Jefferson's legacy resisted the conclusion, and partly because the documentary record on Hemings herself is thin.
Fought described Hemings as "an unbelievably fascinating woman, partly because of the mystery of her as a person." Not many records of her survive. What does survive is the contrast Fought drew for Fox News Digital between Jefferson's public stature and Hemings' legal status.
"Here's probably one of the most powerful men in the country and certainly one of the [most recognizable men in American history]. And here she was giving birth to his children, and she was one of the most powerless types of people in the country."
Fought credited Hemings with using what limited agency she possessed to secure her children's freedom.
"She took what little agency she had and made sure that [her children] were going to have a better life. They were going to be free."
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, issued a statement ahead of the book's publication. The foundation did not treat the DNA results as a revelation so much as a confirmation.
"The study doesn't change what we know about Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings, their children or their world. But it offers occasion to reflect on how we came to know it, and why we share that knowledge."
The foundation also framed the broader historical picture in terms of the Declaration of Independence's unfulfilled promise.
"Together, these histories give us a fuller picture of Monticello, of Jefferson and his world, and of the generations of Americans who have worked to realize [the Declaration's promise]."
Fought offered a straightforward take on what the evidence means for Americans who revere Jefferson as a founding father. She did not ask anyone to stop admiring him. She asked them to stop pretending this part of his life did not happen.
"If you think Jefferson was awesome, you can still keep thinking he's awesome, but he also did this thing. And you can think what you want to think about that. And that's life."
She summed up the broader lesson simply: "When you study history, you study humanity."
Several open questions remain. The specific laboratory and sequencing techniques behind the new analysis have not been publicly detailed beyond what Kurin's book will contain. The exact provenance of the hair, which manuscript held it, and how researchers authenticated the strands as Jefferson's, awaits the book's full publication. And the study's scope regarding Hemings' other children, beyond Madison and Eston, is not yet clear.
History does not ask permission to be complicated. Jefferson wrote the words "all men are created equal" and enslaved the woman who bore his children. The DNA does not change that contradiction, it just removes the last excuse for looking away from it.
