The DNA Legacy of Thomas Jefferson
- 1University of California, Santa Cruz
Abstract
Allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of the enslaved Sally Hemings emerged in the context of U.S. presidential politics in the late 1700s and early 1800s and entailed strongly contested denials and affirmations by family members, biographers, and historians ever since. Previous analysis of Y chromosome markers in contemporary members of the Jefferson and Hemings patrilines was consistent with the paternity hypothesis but rejected by those who pointed out that, absent Jefferson DNA and its direct comparison to the DNA of possible descendants, other Jefferson males could have fathered Sally Hemings children. In this study, we developed an innovative technique to recover DNA from multiple rootless hair samples in a museum collection whose provenance, mitochondrial genomes, Y chromosome markers, and identity to each other indicate that these hairs and the DNA from them are from Thomas Jefferson. Using these DNA data, we find clear evidence of Thomas Jefferson ancestry in descendants of both his wife Martha Wayles Jefferson and Sally Hemings. We measured the amount of identical-by-descent DNA shared between Thomas Jefferson and his known and putative descendants. We find that the amount of shared Jefferson DNA is more likely under the model of direct Thomas Jefferson paternity than other proposed scenarios.
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BibTeX
@misc{green2026legacy,
title = {{The DNA Legacy of Thomas Jefferson}},
author = {R. E. Green and S. H. Vohr and J. D. Kapp and J. E. Ailes and S. Sacco and R. Nguyen and J. Cahill and P. D. Heintzman and J. Flores and L. Kistler and C. A. Hofman and R. C. Fleischer and B. Shapiro and R. Kurin},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.18.752809},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.18.752809v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The DNA Legacy of Thomas Jefferson
AU - R. E. Green
AU - S. H. Vohr
AU - J. D. Kapp
AU - J. E. Ailes
AU - S. Sacco
AU - R. Nguyen
AU - J. Cahill
AU - P. D. Heintzman
AU - J. Flores
AU - L. Kistler
AU - C. A. Hofman
AU - R. C. Fleischer
AU - B. Shapiro
AU - R. Kurin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/18
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.18.752809
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.18.752809v1
AB - Allegations that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of the enslaved Sally Hemings emerged in the context of U.S. presidential politics in the late 1700s and early 1800s and entailed strongly contested denials and affirmations by family members, biographers, and historians ever since. Previous analysis of Y chromosome markers in contemporary members of the Jefferson and Hemings patrilines was consistent with the paternity hypothesis but rejected by those who pointed out that, absent Jefferson DNA and its direct comparison to the DNA of possible descendants, other Jefferson males could have fathered Sally Hemings children. In this study, we developed an innovative technique to recover DNA from multiple rootless hair samples in a museum collection whose provenance, mitochondrial genomes, Y chromosome markers, and identity to each other indicate that these hairs and the DNA from them are from Thomas Jefferson. Using these DNA data, we find clear evidence of Thomas Jefferson ancestry in descendants of both his wife Martha Wayles Jefferson and Sally Hemings. We measured the amount of identical-by-descent DNA shared between Thomas Jefferson and his known and putative descendants. We find that the amount of shared Jefferson DNA is more likely under the model of direct Thomas Jefferson paternity than other proposed scenarios.
ER -