Robert Jefferson: Possible Immigrant Ancestor of President Thomas Jefferson

Very little is known about immigrant Robert Jefferson. His name has lain silent in the records of time until recently when a small nugget of information connected him to founding father President Thomas Jefferson. For two hundred years, biographers have evaluated the limited evidence available to discover where the Jefferson ancestors came from. Today, with DNA testing and computerized databases, a possible link across the ocean has been found.

Robert Jefferson arrived in America sometime before 1639, the year Justinian Cooper claimed him for a headright. The term “headright” refers to a common method of distributing land in the early colonial period after the Virginia Company established a ruling that fifty acres of land would be awarded to anyone who paid passage to America for themselves or another person. Because headrights could be sold, it is impossible to know how Cooper obtained his headright. Since more than 75 percent of Virginia settlers in the 1600s were indentured servants, it is most likely Robert arrived as one….

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Contents of the Summer 2025 issue:

• Robert Jefferson: Possible Immigrant Ancestor of President Thomas Jefferson, by Lynn Scott
• Marriage Announcements in the Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) January-March 1897
• List of Slaves Left by the British in York and Gloucester, Virginia, 1781 (Virginia Gazette)
• How to File a FOIA Request for Genealogy Records, by Diane Haddad
• 1773 Contract and Addenda between Phillip Mazzei and Antonio & Maria Giannini, transcribed by Rosanna Bencoach