National Geographic Society

6/26/2005

Herbert Barger, Jefferson Family Historian and Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society board member, has recently assisted the National Geographic Society with a vital Genographic Project. Spencer Wells, National Geographic geneticist, needed the Jefferson DNA for his project and Mr. Barger, who assisted Dr. Eugene Foster with the 1998 Jefferson-Hemings DNA Study, agreed to assist and provided Jefferson information for this important study. It is from Mr. Barger's data banks that Jefferson family genealogy and history is maintained.

The results were revealed to the public in the National Geographic film production, The Search for Adam, shown nationally on June 26, 2005. A Jefferson DNA donor is shown providing a mouth swab for the match. Using other similar swabs, Mr. Wells was able to determine that the Jefferson DNA matched to the Phoenicians, an ancient civilization living in what is now Syria and Lebanon. The Phoenicians were known as the Canaanites in the Bible.