Could Thomas Jefferson's DNA Trail Reveal Middle-Eastern Origins?
Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the Jefferson clan in the British Isles may have descended from a Phoenician merchant family that set up a trading post up there.
Maybe the Lebanese (many of whom trace their ancestry to the Phoenicians) will get more interested in Jefferson’s thought if they realize he may share a direct, fairly recent common patrilineal ancestor.
And, of course, the finding lends a whole new meaning to the phrase “Americans of Middle Eastern descent”!
End/ (Not Continued)
Interesting article, but is this supposed to be a recent development? The article is dated Mar. 29, 2007.
Either way, interesting, especially since Jefferson owned a Qur'an (and I'm sure this will give further fuel to those who suspect Jefferson was the original secret Muslim president).
The sad fact is that Jefferson (as well as the rest of the founding fathers) would be considered too radical for main stream consideration today. He would be a terrorist lover in addition to being Middle Eastern.
Hopefully the Lebanese will be indifferent, noting that ancestry often says little about who and what a person is. Humans are ultimately all related.
I recently stumbled across this astounding Wikipedia article on Jan Janszoon (see link to en.wikipedia.org). Janszoon was a Dutch pirate who was elected by his peers to be President and Chief Admiral of the Republic of Salé in Morocco in the early 1600s.
He and his second wife had several children, one of whom, Anthony Janszoon van Salee (see link to en.wikipedia.org), was among the richest early settlers of Manhattan island, an unreconstructed Muslim, and ancestor to a who's who of American luminaries (Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jacqueline Bouvier, etc.). Hardly anything is known about Anthony's mother, except that she met the pirate in Cartagena, Spain, and probably had a dark complexion.
"Dr. Jobling said. Jewish Y chromosomes resemble those of Middle Eastern peoples, and the Jewish Diaspora is one way Middle Eastern chromosomes entered Europe. Study Raises Possibility of Jewish Tie for Jefferson"-
With all the theries in the picture, wouldn't it be great if I hypothesize that Jefferson thoughts on democracy and seperation of church and state were due to an unditectable point mutation on his k2 rare Y chromosome? And that, this mutation was acquired during his ancestor's sail across the atlantic induring the high seas?
It would be worth it then, to have a genetic experiment, by putthing all the middle eastern and jewish leaders on a boat, and let them sail across the Atlantic to America. By the time they reach the shore, their haplogroup k2 would have acquired the mutation of democracy and desire to seperate church and state. Middle east crisis solved.
Note to self: don't put them on the same boat, otherwise they would kill each other before that mutation take effect. Leila.