It might be interesting for male descendants of "Hessians" who have similar surnames, and are suspected of being brothers, or having a common male ancestor, to get their Y-DNA tested. That has been done with surnames a lot, for various family projects. That is about the only use it has for this topic. For families and individuals, though, I highly recommend have having some testing - I've had mtDNA, a DNA "Print" which shows your overall ancestral type, and the Y-DNA test. The Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemmings DNA project only proved, according to experts, that Jefferson Y-DNA "blood" is present in the male descendants of Hemmings. It did NOT prove that Thomas Jefferson fathered her child - there is not even a sample of Jefferson's DNA because he had no surviving male lines through his wife. The only DNA that is available is from Jefferson's male relatives' descendants. I constantly hear, and read, people say that Jefferson was the father of Hemming's son based on DNA "evidence". At the time of the birth of Hemming's son, Jefferson was in his 60's, had chronic dysentery, and was NOT known, unlike Ben Franklin, to be a "ladies man". There were, at the time of conception, many other male Jefferson’s in the area of Sally Hemmings, including his brother and a number of nephews. This controversy was going on 200 years ago, and still is! ----- Original Message ----- From: Nelda Percival <nelda_percival@hotmail.com> Date: Wednesday, March 2, 2005 11:58 pm Subject: Re: [HESSIAN] German / Hessian blood > Barry, > If it is about Hessians it belongs on the list. But I wish Eric or > George > would explain in Laymans terms but in detail... > Nelda