DNA test on Thomas Jeffersons hair provides extraordinary proof he fathered kids with Sally Hemings and also leads to chilling other breakthroughs

Cutting-edge DNA tests on Thomas Jefferson’s hair have provided “extraordinary proof” he sired children with slave Sally Hemings — and the process bizarrely also helped nail serial killers such as Rex Heuermann.Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution compared the genome sequence in a few strands of hair from the head of the United States’ third president with DNA samples from 13 people believed to be the living descendants of Jefferson and Hemings, the New York Times reported.Speculation that Jefferson had children with his slave has swirled since the early 19th century, but now, after 15 years of work, the team of archaeologists, genealogists, molecular geneticists and historians say they have proven the link.“Other people may have other ideas, and I don’t think there’s necessarily an institution position, but I think it’s compelling.It’s very clear,” Smithsonian scholar Richard Kurin, who led the project, said of the findings while promoting his new book.“This is a topic of interest to the American people.

I didn’t invent this question, and it wasn’t invented by the Smithsonian.It goes back to [Alexander] Hamilton and Jefferson and [John] Adams,” Kurin said, referring to some of the nation’s Founding Fathers.“If we have evidence, scholarship and science that helps elucidate American history, I think we have a duty to pursue it.”The groundbreaking teachniques used to sequence of Jefferson’s entire genome have also now been since used to solve Long Island’s Gilgo Beach murders and those of the infamous Golden State Killer.“It’s hard to say we ever would have gotten to this place, where all these tools were used to convict the Gilgo Beach serial killer, if it hadn’t been for starting this project,” said Beth Shapiro, an expert in ancient DNA at the University of California, Santa Cruz.Gilgo Beach serial killer Heuermann was done in partly by DNA recovered from a pizza crust he tossed outside his Manhattan architect...