Reuse & Citation

JeffersonDNA.org is designed to be quoted, cited, and shared widely by scholars, educators, journalists and the public. Our goal is to encourage informed discussion of the Jefferson–Hemings paternity question while preserving the accuracy and context essential to scientific and historical analysis.


License

  • Unless otherwise noted, original content on JeffersonDNA.org is licensed under:

  • Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND).

  • This license allows broad sharing and citation while preventing modified or adapted versions that could misrepresent evidence or conclusions.

Attribution (simple and streamlined)

For journalism and general media use

Attribution to JeffersonDNA.org is sufficient.

Examples:

  • “According to JeffersonDNA.org …”

  • “JeffersonDNA.org, an evidence review, reports that …”

When space permits, linking to the relevant page is encouraged, but page titles, dates, or long URLs are not required for print or broadcast media.

For academic or scholarly use

Full citations (including page titles and URLs) are recommended.

Examples and formats are provided on our How to Cite This Site page. (NOTE: Where are the examples?)

What you may do without additional permission

You are welcome to:

  • Quote passages with attribution

  • Cite JeffersonDNA.org in journalism, academic work, and public writing

  • Link to any page or PDF

  • Share pages or PDFs verbatim and unmodified for non-commercial purposes

  • Use in education, including classroom handouts, syllabi, and course platforms, provided the material is unmodified and attributed

What requires permission

Please request permission before you:

  • Publish modified, adapted, abridged, or rewritten versions of our content

  • Publish translations(translations are derivative works)

  • Use our content incommercial or monetized contexts

  • Republish content in ways that remove qualifying language or materially alter meaning

  • Use our content to generate or train AI-produced derivative material presented as a substitute for the original text

Permission requests can be submitted using the Contact form.

Context integrity

JeffersonDNA.org presents scientific, historical, and genealogical analysis that depends on careful wording and full evidentiary context.

Quotation is encouraged.

Presenting excerpts or summaries in a way that materially alters meaning or omits critical qualifications is not permitted under our reuse policy.

Media note

Journalists and documentary producers are explicitly encouraged to quote and cite JeffersonDNA.org.

If you would like:

  • Clarification of a passage

  • Confirmation of context

  • Permission for translation, adaptation, or extended quotation

Please use the Contact form and select the appropriate reason for contacting us.

Third-party materials

Some pages include quotations or excerpts from third-party sources. Those materials may be subject to different rights and are not necessarily covered by the Creative Commons license above. Where applicable, we link to original sources.