George Washington: Daddy?

An Illinois woman hopes publicity about Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slaves will bolster her claim that she is descended from First President George Washington and one of his slaves.

Janet Allen, 44, said her ancestors include the nation's first president and a plantation slave named Venus.

Allen and her family went public with the claim two years ago. They have been further inspired lately by scientific research that suggests Jefferson may have fathered a child with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings.

"We're trying to prove who we are," Allen said in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune. "This is where the battle lines are going to be drawn."

Researchers for Washington's estate in Mt. Vernon, Va., have found evidence confirming that Allen's slave ancestors played an important role in Washington's family.

The estate maintains that Washington never fathered children and criticized Allen's paternity claim.

"It does put a slight tarnish, ever so slight, on the reputation of the most important person in the history of America," said James Rees, resident director of the estate. "Of all the leaders we've ever had, he deserves to have a character that's unblemished."

Like the controversy surrounding Jefferson, the third president, the Washington claim rests on a long oral tradition and may ultimately be solved using a mix of historical sleuthing and new genetic technology.

The family's theory involves an alleged liaison between Washington and Venus that would have begun in 1784.

That year, Washington's youngest nephew on his brother's side died at the plantation where Venus lived. Allen's sister, Linda Allen Bryant, who lives in Colorado, said Washington would have met Venus when he went to comfort the family of his brother, John Augustine Washington.

Washington's brother wrote at the time, asking George to visit, though no other record of the trip exists.

Sometime in the next two years, Venus gave birth to a mulatto son named West Ford, the Allen sisters' great-great-great-grandfather. Ford moved to Mt. Vernon when Washington's wife, Martha, died in 1802. Washington had died in 1799.

The estate said that Ford had privileges that were denied slaves around him: He was taught to read, received a primitive vaccination for smallpox, and was eventually freed and given land.

Still, researchers for the estate say Washington was too busy rebuilding Mt. Vernon after an eight-year absence during the Revolutionary War to visit his brother's plantation at the time when Ford would have been conceived. No record survives of Washington visiting the plantation between 1783 and 1787.

Some scholars also believe the first president was sterile and therefore incapable of fathering Ford, though in some letters, Washington appears to have blamed Martha for their lack of children.

Many historians have concluded that John Augustine or his on, Bushrod, are the most likely candidates to have been West Ford's father, the Tribune said.