Jefferson's Other Middle Eastern Connection

One of our former ICJS fellows alerted us to the following news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6332545.stm.  Apparently scientists have found that Thomas Jefferson's DNA belongs to a Y-chromosome haplogroup (K2) commonly found in the Middle East and North Africa; one of the suggested explanations for this is that this a genetic remnant of Phoenician traders who visited Western Europe. 

The full scientific article on this ("Thomas Jefferson's Y Chromosome Belongs to a Rare European Lineage," by King et al) will appear sometime in 2007 in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.  Stay tuned!