I've done some research myself and it appears that the Y chromosome was in fact not found in the Carrs.    It's a mystery why my debate partner of the other thread did not point this out, rather than immediately descend into the gutter.   He seems to consider it a point of pride to not ever answer a direct question.   Ah well, different strokes.....

The relationship of the Hemings to the Jeffersons is indeed a fascinating topic.

From the Ellis book: p 153


"Finally, all the slaves working in the household, and most of those living along Mulberry Row on the mountaintop, were members of two families that had been with Jefferson since the earliest days of his marriage to Martha.   They enjoyed a privileged status within the slave hierarchy at Monticello , were given larger food and clothing rations, considerably greater latitude of movement, and even the discretion to choose jobs or reject them on occasion..."

"The other and larger slave family were all Hemingses, headed by the matriarch, Betty Hemings, whom Jefferson had inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles, along with ten of her twelve children in 1773. It was an open secret within the slave community at Monticello that the privileged status enjoyed by the Hemings family derived from its mixed blood. Several of Betty's children, perhaps as many as six, had most probably been fathered by John Wayles......All the slaves he (Jefferson) eventually freed were Hemingses.

"Since the members of the Hemings family were the front-and-center slaves at Monticello, most guests and visitors to the mountaintop experienced the Jeffersonian version of slavery primarily as a less black and less oppressive phenomenon than it actually was."


And despite this, Jefferson was in fact capable of dealing harshly with slaves. "No reliable evidence exists to document an instance in which Jefferson personally flogged a slave or dispensed any physical punishment himself."   But "on rare occasions he ordered overseers to use the lash, but his general policy was to sell off troublemakers."

Yet again "he was extremely reluctant to sell slaves against their will"..."he tried to respect the wishes of those slaves who asked to be sold, usually to be united with their families."

But he did believe in "the real distinctions nature has made."--though he was " careful to advance the view 'as a suspicion only', people of African descent were sufficiently inferior to whites in mental aptitude that any emancipation policy permitting racial interaction was a criminal injustice to the freed slaves as well as a biological travesty against 'the real distinctions nature has made'."

"As the depth of his own indebtedness began to sink in, there were three ways tp raise large amounts of capital to appease his creditors: He could sell off land....he could sell slaves outright; and he could rent or lease the labor of his slaves to neighboring planters. He expressed considerable guilt about pursuing the last two options, suggesting it was a betrayal of his paternal obligations to the black members of his extended 'family'".

"The net result of all these influences was a somewhat tortured position on slavery that combined unequivocal condemnation of the institution in the abstract with blatant procrastination whenever specific emancipation schemes were suggested".