I’m Thomas Jefferson’s grandson twice.
Over ten years ago I took a DNA test that revealed my Y chromosome matched Thomas Jefferson III, Founding Father, third president of the United States of America and primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Thus making me, presumably, one of his last direct descendants.
And, I realized my surname was fake.
If you want to skip the rest of this article and get straight to genealogical proof, you can read how I traced my family, despite using a fake name for 213 years. from my house in New Jersey to Thomas Jefferson:
Otherwise, we’ll be discussing my DNA match with Thomas Jefferson:
My genealogical journey began with my ancestral home of Powhatan, Virginia. I’m Native American, a descendant ofboth the Powhatan and peoples Monacan peoples Jefferson wrote about in his Notes on the State of Virginia in 1781.
The most striking revelation of my journey came with the unearthing of a pivotal document — the 1860 Powhatan slave schedule which proves my family was owned by an Eliza Hemings.
My family was owned by Black people.
The Hemings family, synonymous with the enigmatic relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings, played a significant role in shaping my family’s narrative and reshaping my understanding of both my lineage and America’s complex past.
Seeing a Hemings featured on a slave schedule is a raw reminder that Sally, despite being a slave at Monticello, was only 1/4 African; only one of her grandparents was an African. Making her children with my grandfather 7/9 European.
The Heir to Monticello
As a descendant of enslaved Native American persons, and Heir to Monticello, I and my ancestors have been disinherited from our grandfather’s will and completely erased from American history.
It’s unknown whether or not any one was even aware of my grandfather’s existence outside of the Hemings-Jefferson family. Thomas Jefferson was born in present-day Powhatan, Virginia at his parent’s Shadwell plantation. His secret son, my fourth great-grandfather, was also born in Powhatan.
Given the location of their births, and my 23andMe results, the odds of paternity are conclusive. We are Thomas Jefferson’s family, the result of an infidelity with a second unknown woman who may or may not have been enslaved alongside Sally Hemings.
The results of DNA tests conducted by Dr. Eugene Foster and a team of geneticists in 1998 challenged the view that the Jefferson-Hemings relationship could be neither refuted nor substantiated. The study — which tested Y-chromosomal DNA samples from male-line descendants of Field Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson’s uncle), John Carr (grandfather of Jefferson’s Carr nephews), Eston Hemings, and Thomas Woodson — indicated a genetic link between the Jefferson and Hemings descendants.
The results of the study established that an individual carrying the male Jefferson Y chromosome fathered Eston Hemings (born 1808), the last known child born to Sally Hemings. There were approximately 25 adult male Jeffersons who carried this chromosome living in Virginia at that time, and a few of them are known to have visited Monticello. The study’s authors, however, said “the simplest and most probable” conclusion was that Thomas Jefferson had fathered Eston Hemings.
The DNA testing found no genetic link between the Hemings and Carr descendants, refuting Jefferson’s grandchildren’s assertion that his Carr nephews fathered Sally Hemings’s children.
Membership information on the Monticello Association, a non-profit organization founded in 1913 to care for, preserve, and continue the use of the family graveyard at Monticello, the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, website, “Membership in the Association is limited to direct, lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson, through his daughters, Martha and Maria.”
Just to stay edgy, they have their annual meetings in Lynchburg. How machiavellian!
Martha was the one who inherited Monticello. She sold the slaves in 1827 to cover Thomas Jefferson’s debts. [1]
Thomas Morris Jefferson, or Thomas Jefferson IV, my third great-grandfather, has his response recorded on his marriage certificate in 1880 as: “F, Maria.”
Powhatan, Virginia, United States.
It is unclear if Thomas Jefferson IV is the son or grandson of Thomas Jefferson III, former USA president.
There was an Alfred Morris who helped found the First Antioch Baptist Church in Powhatan, Virginia with other formerly enslaved people. Alfred was born in 1811, thus making him just a few years younger than the children Thomas had with Sally.
My father’s mother, Geraldine Morris Jefferson, was also Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter on her maternal side.
Her mother, Estelle Carey Johnson-Bolden is Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter through her mother, Lelia Morris Jefferson. She is Thomas Jefferson IV’s granddaughter through his son Burleigh Morris Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson’s grandchildren from Powhatan, Virginia. My great-grandmother, Estelle Carey Johnson-Bolden (Pocahontas) with her niece Peggy Ann Royall (Royall Pocahontas).
My father Steven Todd Morris Jefferson (Powhatan Jefferson) is behind her. Next to him is his cousin Barbara Ann Johnson (Blacke Pocahontas). In front, her sisters, Carol Ann and Dianne.
The photo was taken by my grandmother, Geraldine Louise Bolden-Morris Jefferson (Louisa Pocahontas).
One of Burleigh’s grandsons, Estelle’s last living first cousin, Harold Morris Jefferson, took a 23andMe test. Together, with just our test results, we are living proof that my father is Thomas Jefferson’s grandson through both of his parents.
23andMe Results. Two Jeffersons.
Harold and I’s 23andMe results compared:
Harold and I are genetically — almost — identical twins down to a chromosomal level.
My maternal haplogroup is L2a1a and Harold’s is L2a1a1; my maternal chromsome also has an Indigenous American notch making my mother’s maternal line Native American rather than African or European.
We both have paternal haplogroup T-M70 on the y-chromosome. So, chromosomally, we’re both half Semitic. Presumably, his maternal is probably African.
We’re both 36% Nigerian. But Harold is about a quarter Ghanaian; whereas I’m only around 1/16.
He has Pakistani markers; contrasting my Egyptian markers. Our family history indicates we should have Pakistani and Jewish ancestry. [4] Thomas Jefferson’s y-chromsome is native to Canaan. Making us Israeli and Palestinian. Palestinians tend to have heavy Egyptian admixture; sometimes Pakistani which is grouped with Northern Indians.
DNA matches on 23andMe from Powhatan tell us we have British, Irish, French and Greek ancestry. Harold and I are both about a quarter British & Irish.
Harold has Spanish and Portuguese markers, which explains the naming of some Virginian Native Americans, like the “Tutelo.” Presumably, the Spanish missionaries that had contact with Paquiquineo or Powhatan III, left behind mestizo children in Virginia before being driven out with the rest of the Spaniards.
I had a small amount of Spanish & Portuguese in my results, alongside some Scandinavian, around 2014. The historical connection to Spanish missionaries in Virginia and the Muslim conquest of Iberia could explain the bit of Arab in us.
Moreover, I’m Mexican. But Harold is not. Mexican also does not necessarily imply Mestizo, Mulato, or zambo ancestry.
Genealogy
I conducted a data science project where I compiled all of my ancestors’ census data, marriage certificates, and death certificates; then I created a visualization to determine my ethnicity based on how the government categorized them racially in the early 1800s to contrast my 23andMe results.
I only have eight Black fourth great-grandparents. Making me 1/8 Black. I’m half Colored, an ethnic group analogous to American White people, South African Coloureds, Louisiana Red Bones, and what we call trigueños in Latin America. [2][3][4]
Colored people are of Indigenous, European and African ancestry.
