OFFICIAL WORD on SALLY HEMINGS CHILDREN and DNA

MONTICELLO - SALLY HEMINGS brief account

MONTICELLO ORG - ON THOMAS JEFFERSON and SALLY HEMINGS


EXCERPT: According to Madison Hemings, Sally's mother Elizabeth Hemings (1735-1807) was the daughter of an African woman and an English sea captain. By Madison Hemings's and other accounts, Sally Hemings and some of her siblings were the children of John Wayles, Thomas Jefferson's father-in-law, making her the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson (1748-1782). Elizabeth Hemings and her children lived at John Wayles' plantation during his lifetime.

Read the Report of the Monticello Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings for yourself.

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If it is true that Sally's mother was one half African/Black and father, the English sea captain, was European/White, then Sally's mother was one half White. If Sally's half-White mother then conceived her with another European/White Man, Mr. Wayles, that would make Sally three quarters White and one quarter Black.  If Sally then had children with Thomas Jefferson, another White/European man, these children would be mostly White.  But color is not the only identifier when it comes to race or ethnicity.  When someone tells me how they identify I respect them by believing them. I know that appearances aren't everything. 

-Missy