Jonathan Mummolo, Washington Post
- It’s been four years since Bettye Kearse set out to prove a story that has been handed down through generations of her family: that she, an African-American, is a direct descendant of Founding Father James Madison.
But after a prolonged attempt to arrange DNA testing with Madison family descendants in the United States, the two sides have been unable to agree on how to do it. And as Madison’s sprawling Virginia estate, Montpelier, prepares to celebrate the completion of a $24 million restoration next month, Kearse could still be years from answers.
According to stories told by Kearse’s family, Madison fathered a child named Jim with her great-great-great-great-grandmother, a slave cook named Coreen. Kearse, 65, has no documentation to bolster the claim, so in 2004, she enlisted the help of geneticist Bruce Jackson.
Jackson, co-director of the Roots Project at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, which helps African-Americans trace their genetic histories, said the Madison family has been uncooperative with Kearse’s efforts, imposing undue preconditions before they would allow a test.
