[Tell It Right]

They say Thomas Jefferson (a widower) got it on with a slave. The only source of info on that relationship was his political opponents, so we can't make too much of it.

But if we were to believe it, then interestingly enough we'd say he was ahead of his time. According to his opponents Jefferson took her out to galas in his day with her dressed to the nines and introducing her not as his servant but as his girlfriend. Some said he took her with him across the ocean to diplomatic events and introduced her the same in France and London. Oh, the inhumanity! Do you want someone like that representing us? (It's how Jefferson's opponents said it.)

[Verginius Rufus]

On the 1870 census Madison Hemings, a son of Sally Hemings, told the census taker that he was a son of Thomas Jefferson--the census taker wrote it on the margin of the census sheet. Of course Madison would not have known for sure but presumably that is what his mother told him.

In 1998 some DNA study showed that at least one of Sally Hemings' sons had the Jefferson Y-DNA (but that could be from one of Thomas Jefferson's male Jefferson relatives). Previously people had pointed to family claims that it was one of Jefferson's nephews (sons of his sister) who fathered Sally's children--the DNA study in fact suggested that at least one of her children was fathered by one of those nephews (but the publication of the study pushed the idea that Thomas Jefferson himself fathered all of her children).

[Bull Snipe]

There is some circumstantial evidence to that fact. Most of it would not be admissible in a court of law. Also, there is a DNA connection between a Jefferson family male and the descendants of one of Sally Hemming’s sons.