Talk:Jefferson DNA data

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This article was nominated for deletion on 26/2/2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Contents 1 Scope of Article 2 Article title 3 Context 4 Diagram 5 Jewish?

[edit] Scope of Article

I believe this article was initiated to provide the details of Jefferson's DNA data, not the Hemmings Controversy. I think that the controversy should really stay on either the Hemmings page, or a "Hemmings-Jefferson Controversy" page. A lot of people are interested in the Atlantic Modal Haplotype and various other aspects of Y-chromosomal DNA without any concern with respect to who Jefferson did or did not sleep with. This article could be a reference/source in the Hemmings, Ellis, and perhaps a future "Controversy" article for those who want more information. Sandwich Eater 13:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

This article needs a better title. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Context

Who conducted this study? Who took the DNA samples, and when? Are the names of the people tested known? Since this article is basically about one experiment, it needs some context on who conducted the experiment, and where/when. --JW1805 (Talk) 20:48, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

This is not the most appropriate place for the presentation of the historical background. However, this page indicated the lack of a link between Thomas Woodson and either Sally Hemings or Thomas Jefferson. It was corrected. Misrepresentation of this history continues after 200+ years. Historians do not acknowledge the mutilations to the Farm Book that Thomas Jefferson wrote in his own hand. An erasure is located in a census of slaves, written by Jefferson in the column for male slaves and the line for slaves born in 1790. Hemings' first son was born in 1790. The names were not entirely erased and so the last letter of the mother's name survives in the Farm Book. The letter is a 'Y.' The name Sally ends in a 'Y.' Nor do historians acknowledge the record of gifts Thomas Jefferson recorded made to Thomas in his financial records. Jefferson made those gifts in 1800 and 1801, shortly before newman James Callender reported that Sally Hemings was the concubine of Thomas Jefferson, disquieting the liaison. If Jeffersonian historians were to acknowledge the mutilations of the Farm Book and the notations written by Thomas Jefferson, then historians, such as Andrew Berstein would be oblidged to exalt a much different history. They would be forced to write the history as Thomas Jefferson would have written it.

Nor has denial quieted after 200 years. In 1999 University of Virginia doctorial student Joshua Rothman wrote an article, after the reported DNA results were reported. The article was printed in a book published by the University of Virginia. Rothman claimed, "Hemings herself claimed this child died shortly after being born." The fact is that no letters, no diary or any writings by Hemings survived, if they existed. Further no one during her lifetime (in writing) quoted a word spoken by Hemings. Rothman could not have interviewed Sally Hemings, as she died over 100 years before Rothman was born. Rothman attempted to kill off her son after 200 years with this misrepresentation of the historic record. This error is not the only abomination in Rothman's article. It is obvious that Rothman's education at the University of Virginia confirms the caution W.E. B. DuBois, advised over 100 years ago,"We shall never have a science of history until we have in our colleges men who regard the truth as more important than the defense of the white race."

Nor did the habitual liar Joseph Ellis quiet the controversy when he appeared on the PBS NewsHour program on November 2, 1998 to report the DNA results. If scientists controlled the process, then why didn't scientists appear first on television to comment on the results, rather than a habitual liar? Historians, such as Ellis, who have misrepresented the history for 200 years, could have commented after the release of the DNA results. What in fact happened was that Ellis was in contact with Nature before the DNA results were released. Dr. Eugene Foster, who collected blood samples from participants, had promised participants that the process would be removed from the reach of historians, but Ellis crossed the line too early. The God and Country Foundation forced the magazine Nature to "clarify" its position and admit that the DNA testing was not conclusive. Whatsmore, Ellis immersed the Jefferson /Hemings controversy in the muck of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal two days before a congessional election (front page Sunday newspaper coverage). How does a "scientific" process have ethical intregity, when its most visible spokesman is a habitual liar, immersed in the political soup of fresh White House scandal? Ellis added controversy to controversy. ^[1]

1. ^ A President In The Family, Praeger, 2001.

[edit] Diagram

Would some sort of family tree diagram be helpful here? --JW1805 (Talk) 20:50, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish?

So does jefferson have a jewish paternal line? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.69.81.224 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 20 June 2007

It's possible. There are Jews who belong to Haplogroup K2, and that is one source of K2 in European populations. The New York Times ran an article on the possibility in February. However there are also many other ways K2 lineages are believed to have been carried from the Middle East to Western Europe. One possibility, raised in the article here and particularly publicised a couple of years ago by Spencer Wells, is possible lines of descent from Phoenician traders; another is possible lines of descent from soldiers of the Roman Empire with origins in the Eastern Mediterranean.

At the moment we simply don't have a detailed enough picture of what clusters of STR haplotypes there are in K2, and whether they fall into identifiable geographic or migratory patterns -- because K2 remains rather unusual in the Western Europeans and European Americans who have mostly been tested so far.

But the picture may well become clearer as more and more research and DNA testing continues to be done. Jheald 19:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

As Jews made up 10% of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago it would be almost mathematically impossible for a European or North-African not to have at least one ancestor who was either Jewish or a "Jewish" progenitor. LarG (talk) 19:57, 4 April 2008 (UTC)