March 6, 2007
What’s In a Gene? Posted by Alexander Burns at 05:00 PM EST The last few weeks have been good ones for genealogists. Every now and then, genealogy makes headlines with the story of some public figure’s unknown past, or of the secrets genes reveal about a long-dead historical personage. In recent years, many of these stories have related to the revelation of unknown Jewish descent: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Sen. John Kerry, Gen. Wesley Clark, and, most recently, Sen. George Allen discovered that their recent ancestors include Jews. Since the middle of February, however, a whole spate of genealogical information has hit the front pages. I wonder whether any of it is significant. First, and perhaps most widely reported, was the story of the Reverend Al Sharpton’s family tree, which apparently grew quite close to that of the late Senator Strom Thurmond. Sharpton’s ancestors, it seems, were owned by relatives of the Thurmond family. Sharpton said this discovery was “probably the most shocking thing” he’s ever learned. I find that statement questionable, given that Sharpton has asserted for years that his ancestry might include slaves. Nevertheless, it’s an unpredictable connection that genealogists unveiled, and, for Sharpton, no doubt a meaningful one. Next, the genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner unveiled research into the genealogy of another black political leader. According to Reitwiesner, one of Barack Obama’s ancestors, George Washington Overall, owned slaves. This seems, at first, rather more shocking than the Sharpton story. The man who may be the first black President, descended from slave owners? Obama, however, has long acknowledged that family rumors hold that his ancestry is linked to that of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. Compared to that legend, descent from an ordinary slave owner seems altogether unsurprising. Finally, it was reported last Wednesday that geneticists at the University of Leicester have uncovered evidence suggesting that Thomas Jefferson may have had Jewish ancestry. As The New York Times reported, “Jefferson’s Y chromosome belongs to the branch designated K2, which is quite rare” and relatively common among Middle Eastern and Jewish peoples. Though Jefferson’s Jewish ancestor would have been quite far removed in time from the third President, it’s an ironic turn of events that Madeleine Albright’s first predecessor at the State Department also had hidden Jewish heritage. All of this is interesting. But in a historical sense is any of it significant? Should we understand Sharpton, or Obama, or Jefferson differently because of their genes? For the first two men, I think the answer is unambiguously no, as the results of studying their genealogy only serves to sharpen their preexisting images. For Sharpton, discovering that his ancestors were owned by Thurmond’s is almost appropriate, as it almost seems to confirm the polar opposition between the worldviews of these two men. For Obama, finding proof that his ancestors owned slaves helps enhance his cherished image as a walking, talking embodiment of modern American diversity. Indeed his spokesman said as much: “It is a true measure of progress that the descendant of a slave owner would come to marry a student from Kenya and produce a son who would grow up to be a candidate for President of the United States.” What about Jefferson? Do we learn anything new about this founding father from this discovery about his genes? I tend to think not, since Jefferson himself was unaware of any Jewish ancestry he might have had. Unless we cling to an outdated notion of racial determinism, we can hardly reinterpret Jefferson based on the ancestry of his Y chromosome. We might consider this as still more evidence of racial mixing among early Americans. In Jefferson’s case, we really don’t need any further proof of this. But we might further reconsider whatever allegiance we still have to the notion that America was founded solely by “the stock of the Puritans.” And in one individual’s case, former Senator Allen might reconsider what it means to be a “common-sense Jeffersonian conservative.”
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