Did Thomas Jefferson Father Sally Hemings' Children? After More Than a Decade of Research, the Answer Is Finally Firmly in Hand

It was a rather dreary October afternoon in 2011 when I turned to my computer to watch a rough cut of Jefferson’s Secret Bible, a documentary for the Smithsonian cable television channel. I was the Under Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the film was about the conservation of a precious artifact, a book known as the “Jefferson Bible” that would soon go on display at the National Museum of American History. After his retirement to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson had carefully cut out selected passages from Greek, Latin, French and English versions of the Bible, then pasted them in four parallel columns on loose sheets of paper and had them bound into a volume.

I watched the re-enactor who played America’s third president use a small razor-sharp penknife to select his chosen biblical passages by candlelight. As I imagined trying to accomplish the task myself, I thought, “I’d probably cut myself over and over again.” That was when another, much bigger thought dawned on me. I emailed Harry Rubenstein, the curator at the museum leading the project: “Given all of that cutting and pasting Jefferson did on the Bible—have we ever looked for any possible transfer of biological material from which we could extract DNA?” His response was swift: “We found a couple of hairs in the book.” I told Rubenstein what I’d realized.

If we had Jefferson’s hair and scientists could find a way to sequence his DNA, we might be able to solve one of the most enduring mysteries in American history: Did Thomas Jefferson have children with the enslaved Sally Hemings? Jefferson and his beloved wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, had six children, but only two—Martha and Maria—survived past early childhood. When his wife became fatally ill, Jefferson is said to have promised her he’d never remarry.

She died in 1782, at the age of 33. Rumors about his involvement with an enslaved woman in his household became a public controversy in Jefferson’s day, driven by presidential election politics. Jefferson called slavery an “abomination” and a “moral and political depravity.” In the Declaration of Independence, he’d proclaimed “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although he envisioned slavery’s eventual elimination, some 600 enslaved people were integral to the operations of Monticello and his other properties.

Abolitionists had already attacked Jefferson for this hypocrisy, but allegations about his relationship with Hemings took this criticism to a new level. Hemings had been born into the household of Jefferson’s late wife and was said to be the daughter of Martha’s father, John Wayles, and one of the enslaved women in his household. According to Isaac Granger Jefferson, a blacksmith enslaved at Monticello, “Sally Hemings’ mother, Betty [Elizabeth Hemings], was a bright mulatto woman, and Sally mightier near White: She was the youngest child.

Folks said that these Hemingses was old Mr. Sally was very handsome: long straight hair down her back.” Jefferson himself left behind no record of his relationship with Hemings, but in his Farm Book—an extensive collection of handwritten notes and records—he noted that Hemings had given birth to six children, four of whom survived infancy. Beverly was born in 1798, Harriet in 1801, Madison in 1805 and Eston in 1808.