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February 16, 2007
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!
Legacy NID:
3746