Dr. Foster found that there was a match between the male descendants of Uncle Field Jefferson and those of Sally Heming's youngest son, Eston Hemings. However there was no match between the male descendants of Tom Woodson, Sally Hemings' first-born son. The nephews' heirs also did not match any of the others, and neither did the neighbors' descendants.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/true/primer.html
Eston was born in 1808, having been conceived in 1807, when Thomas was a frail 64-year-old and declining in health. Physically speaking, he was not exactly primed for new fatherhood. Character-wise, it is simply hard to imagine the careful, cerebral and attentive Thomas Jefferson acting in a way that would have brought him immediate shame and dishonor had he been discovered. There is also the morality issue involved. Maintaining a 37-year affair with a house servant would have been preposterously out of character for him.
WHAT ABOUT RANDOLPH?
Another potential father is Randolph Jefferson, Thomas’ much younger and less cerebral brother. Any of his four eldest sons could have been the father. In Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, Thomas Jefferson’s slave Isaac wrote, “old master’s brother, Mass Randall, was a mighty simple man—used to come out among the slaves, play the fiddle and dance half the night.” Furthermore, it is reported that Randolph fathered children by his own slaves and was friendly with white men who kept black mistresses.
There is no similar pattern of behavior recorded for Thomas Jefferson. In 1807, Randolph was 51 years old, in good health, and not married. What’s more, all of Sally Hemings’ children were conceived and born between 1795 and 1808— when Randolph was single. As circumstantial as it is, Sally Hemings had no more known children after Randolph remarried in 1809.
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