The story of Thomas Jefferson’s illegitimate son

One of the most interesting paternity tests was done in 1998, when genetic analysis led by professor Eugene Foster showed that Thomas Jefferson (1743- 1826), who drew up the Declaration of Independence and later became the third American president, was the father of at least the youngest son of his slave Sally Hemings, who was given the name Eston Hemings Jefferson. The tests, in which Oxford and Leicester universities participated together with the Dutch university of Leiden, compared the DNA of the present descendents of Eston Hemings Jefferson with that of several legal and indisputable heirs of Thomas Jefferson.