Talk:Sally Hemings

Paternity of Sally Hemming's children and her alleged affair with Jefferson
As stated in the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Societies Report of the Scholars Commission, "Dr. Foster cooperated fully in our enquiry and has readily acknowledged that the DNA tests do not suggest that Thomas Jefferson was Eston's father as opposed to someone like his younger brother Randolph or one of Randolph's sons. Indeed, every knowledgeable authority we have consulted, including other scientists who conducted the tests, has denied that these tests could possibly have distinguished among the male members of the Jefferson family in determining the paternity of Eston Hemmings." The Dr. Foster in the quote being the man who administered the original DNA test which this article, and all other scholarly sources, cite as being the primary proof of Eston's paternity.

The claims that Jefferson began an affair with Hemmings in Paris are also disputed in the report, on the grounds that they originate from an interview with Hemmings second youngest son, Madison, and his 1873 interview with a "highly partisan" newspaper editor. The Scholars Report states that there are many problems with Madison's story, such as the fact that Madison could not have personally been witness to the information in the report and cites no source for his claims, as well as the fact that many unusual words in the interview match an 1802 political smear article written about Jefferson by a disreputable reporter.

There are many more claims in the Scholars Report which make a compelling case for casting the paternity of Eston Hemmings into doubt, and I will not repeat them all here. Yet, in spite of this scholarly disagreement on the topic, the opening of this article seems highly biased in favor of the belief that there is generally a scholarly consensus on the matter in favor, not just of the affair and not just of Jefferson being the father of Eston, but in fact of his being the father of many more children by Hemmings. The Report of the Scholars commission is placed at the very end of the introduction to the article, which I contend leads the uninformed reader to making a rash conclusion before they are even aware of its existence. Though I will not be so antagonistic as to make a hasty edit, I call for a review of the wording of this article and hope that moderators will eliminate any potential bias found herein, as well as subsequently reword the introduction so as to present a balanced view of the controversy which is not in danger of leading the general public into a dangerous assumption which lacks the necessary scholarly support. Procopius00 (talk) 23:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)