A centuries-old historical controversy is now unfolding in a Nashville cemetery, where a descendant of Thomas Jefferson is seeking to exhume a grave in hopes of challenging widely accepted conclusions about one of America’s most debated family lineages.
On Nov. 19, seventh-generation Jefferson descendant John H. Works, Jr. filed a petition in Davidson County Chancery Court requesting permission to exhume the remains of John Randolph Jefferson, who is buried in the historic Nashville City Cemetery. Works argues that DNA extracted from the skeletal and tooth samples could help determine whether Thomas Jefferson (or, alternatively, his younger brother Randolph Jefferson) fathered the children of enslaved woman Sally Hemings.
The petition calls for licensed professionals to remove samples and send them to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, one of the world’s leading research centers for ancient DNA. “Either way, the search for the truth will be advanced by granting this petition,” the filing states…