The story of the affair between Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemmings given name Sarah came to the forefront when DNA genetic testing was able to trace one of Hemmings' children to the twenty five male Jeffersons that visited the Monticello estate in Virginia during 1802. Finally, the story of Sarah Hemmings' travails with Thomas Jefferson to Paris was able to surface because the Y-chromosomal DNA attributed to all Jefferson's male descendants could be traced to her son Eston Hemmings' line by private Dr. Eugene Foster. On the contrary, the descendants of West Ford a favored slave that lived on George Washington's Mount Vernon estate were not fortunate to discover conclusive scientific proof of George Washington's lineage with their family. The DNA test performed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation was to determine whether a sampling stray hairs found in historic institutions and private collections truly belonged to the first president. The FBI tested seventh generation George Washington female descendants because women carry a family's entire genetic sequence and pass it on to their children. As for West Ford, the 1994 test proved inconclusive because the Washington's hairs did not come from Mount Vernon and only showed a limited sequence. The Ford family avers that there are no Bushrods or Corbins in the family lineage. Although West Ford's body is now missing from George Washington's family crypt, I suppose the answer to the mystery could possibly be extracted from George Washington's Masonic Memorial.
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