Eugene Foster; arranged tests of Jefferson DNA
LOS ANGELES - Dr. Eugene Foster, the retired pathologist who orchestrated the DNA testing that showed that Thomas Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings's children, died Monday at University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, according to his son-in-law Brian Pusser. He was 81.
Historians had speculated for nearly two centuries that Jefferson's affair with the household slave had produced illegitimate offspring because of rumors at the time and because the children strongly resembled the nation's third president.
Some of the children also said they were Jefferson's descendants, but many specialists had dismissed the speculation.
Dr. Foster was brought into the controversy by a friend, amateur historian Winifred Bennett. At a 1996 dinner with Dr. Foster, she speculated about the possibility of using DNA to trace the possible linkage.
"I reached the conclusion that theoretically it may be almost impossible using the conventional technology that was being used for tracing ancestry," he said later. When Bennett announced to the media that they would try to trace the ancestry, "all the experts said it was a crazy idea, and I was somewhat embarrassed," Dr. Foster said.
One of those experts, however, told Dr. Foster about a then-new technique that uses only the Y, or male, chromosome to trace ancestry. Unlike other chromosomes, the Y does not undergo recombination during reproduction and is thus passed intact from father to son.
Dr. Foster contacted geneticist Christopher Tyler-Smith of the University of Oxford in England, who agreed to perform the necessary tests.
Dr. Foster and Bennett tracked down four male lineages to test. Their conclusion: The Y chromosome of a descendant of Eston Hemings Jefferson matched that of Jefferson's lineage perfectly.
The results led to a split between Bennett and Dr. Foster. Bennett wanted to hold them for a book she was planning to write. Dr. Foster wanted to publish them in a scientific article.
"It became clear to me once all the scientists were involved in this that the study, whatever the results might be, would only have real credibility if published . . . in a reputable journal," he said.
The findings were published in 1998 in the journal Nature. Bennett never wrote her book.
In 2000, the Thomas Jefferson Association, which operates Monticello, concluded that "although paternity cannot be established with absolute certainty, our evaluation of the best evidence available suggests the strong likelihood that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship over time that led to the birth of one, and perhaps all, of the known children of Sally Hemings."
But the conclusion remains somewhat controversial. Members of the Monticello Association, who claim descent from Jefferson through his eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, have voted not to admit Hemings's descendants.
Eugene Abram Foster was born in the Bronx on April 26, 1927, and graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1943. He attended college and medical school at Washington University in St. Louis, where he met his future wife, Jane Brown.
He had just started his internship in Salt Lake City when he was drafted. He urged Jane to return from France, where she was working, and they were married. He spent three years of military service on American Indian reservations in North and South Dakota.
Dr. Foster spent 17 years in the pathology department at the University of Virginia and 14 more at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston before retiring in Charlottesville.
Throughout his career, Dr. Foster spent considerable time reading and recording books for the blind and dyslexic.
Besides Jane, his wife of 56 years, Dr. Foster leaves two daughters, Rebecca Pusser of Charlottesville and Susannah Baxendale; a son, Ethan of Sedona, Ariz.; and four grandchildren.
