March 7, 2007
What's In a Gene? II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 12:50 PM EST Alexander Burns writes, “As The New York Times reported, ‘Jefferson’s Y chromosome belongs to the branch designated K2, which is quite rare’ and relatively common among Middle Eastern and Jewish peoples. Though Jefferson’s Jewish ancestor would have been quite far removed in time from the third President, it’s an ironic turn of events that Madeleine Albright’s first predecessor at the State Department also had hidden Jewish heritage. I found the story quite interesting too, but I don’t think that this proves that Thomas Jefferson had a Jewish ancestor, only that it makes it likely that he had a Middle Eastern one. Of course, so did many of his successors in the White House. A Spanish noblewoman named Sancha de Ayala went to England in 1371 in the entourage of Constanza, daughter of Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile, who married John of Gaunt. Sancha married Sir William Blount and left many British descendants. Among the American Presidents who can claim descent from her are George Washington, William Henry Harrison, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, Herbert Hoover, FDR, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and, obviously, George W. Bush. Sancha de Ayala is a classic “gateway ancestor,” one who leads to a vast recoverable ancestry, in her case in medieval Spain and the Mediterranean generally. See here. One of her ancestors was born in Constantinople, and there are likely to have been some of Moorish descent. While Thomas Jefferson does not seem to have this descent, he does have descents from William the Lion, King of Scots, and Henry I and Edward III, kings of England. These royal descents guarantee a richly varied ancestry, as kings often married far afield and for political reasons. Edward III, for instance is descended from Charlemagne more than a a thousand times. Indeed, it would be astonishing if Jefferson did not have a remote Jewish ancestor, given the fact that many Jews converted to Christianity (and vice versa) in the early Middle Ages. Of course, none of these descents are agnatic (through the male line) as the Y chromosome descends. Jefferson’s male line is only known as far back as his great-grandfather, also Thomas Jefferson, who died before 1697. How a Middle Eastern Y chromosome found its way into the Welsh gene pool will almost certainly never be known. Parish record keeping of births and marriages began only in 1538 (and often later as some parishes dawdled) in England and Wales. Before then, only the rich can be traced through wills.
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