Haplogroup T (Y-DNA) - Notable Haplogroup Members

Notable Haplogroup Members

A notable member of the T-M184 haplogroup is Thomas Jefferson. The Y-chromosomal complement of the Jefferson male line was studied in 1998 in an attempt to resolve the controversy over whether he had fathered the mixed-race children of his slave Sally Hemings. A 1998 DNA study of the Y chromosome in the Jefferson male line found that it matched that of a descendant of Eston Hemings, Sally Hemings' youngest son. This confirmed the body of historical evidence, and most historians believe that Jefferson had a long-term intimate liaison with Hemings for 38 years, and fathered her six children of record, four of whom lived to adulthood. In addition, the testing conclusively disproved any connection between the Hemings descendant and the Carr male line. Jefferson grandchildren had asserted in the 19th century that a Carr nephew had been the father of Hemings' children, and this had been the basis of historians' denial for 180 years.

Phylogenetic network analysis of its Y-STR (short tandem repeat) haplotype shows that it is most closely related to an Egyptian K2 haplotype, but the presence of scattered and diverse European haplotypes within the network is nonetheless consistent with Jefferson’s patrilineage belonging to an ancient and rare indigenous European type. This is supported by the observation that two of 85 unrelated British men sharing the surname Jefferson also share the President’s Y-STR haplotype within haplogroup K2.

— Turi E. King et al.: "Thomas Jefferson’s Y Chromosome Belongs to a Rare European Lineage", AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, 000:000–000.2007

The affiliation of the Jefferson haplotype to T1a* and the absence of closely related haplotypes (zero to two step mutations away) in the network supports the hypothesis that this haplotype belongs to an ancient rare European Y-chromosome lineage rather than to lineages that recently migrated to Europe from the Near East.

— Mendez 2011