4. Sally Hemings’ Oral Family History
For more than a century, descendants of Sally Hemings have shared stories describing Thomas Jefferson as the father of Hemings’s children. These oral traditions, recorded in interviews and family letters, were preserved by scholars studying Monticello’s enslaved community. Hemings descendants speak of whispered conversations, promises exchanged in private rooms and the special status her children held. Such generational narratives—acknowledged by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation—add a vital personal dimension to the historical and scientific evidence.
