Thomas Jefferson may have had a Jewish ancestor, a new genetic study suggests. The New York Times reported Wednesday that researchers studying the third U.S. president’s Y chromosome found it belongs to a lineage that is rare in Europe but common in the Middle East, raising the possibility that he had a Jewish ancestor many generations ago. Geneticists at the University of Leicester in England are now studying K2, the rare branch or lineage to which Jefferson’s Y chromosome belongs, they wrote in The American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Each Y chromosome falls on branches of a single tree descended from one man in the ancestral human population. No biological samples of Jefferson remain, but descendants of his paternal uncle had given cells to researchers trying to ascertain whether Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
