Almost thirty people who are not descended from the fourteen families featured on this website were interviewed for the Getting Word project. They fall into two groups. We have interviewed a number of people with a possible, but still unclear, connection to the Monticello African American community. They have either heard Monticello mentioned by elders in their family or they note that names in their ancestry match Monticello names. We and the participants continue to try to solve these mysteries.
In the second group are people who have generously shared what they have heard about the enslaved residents at Monticello and their descendants. The members of Peter Fossett’s church and a descendant of Madison Hemings’s neighbor, for instance, provided precious information that would otherwise have been lost.
Since he was recorded as stating that he was born at Monticello, Henry Martin probably belonged to one of the fourteen featured families. Yet exactly who his parents were has not been determined.
