The two women, who are second cousins, have the same great grandparents - Giles Madison and his wife, Fannie Strain Madison - of Bastrop County, Texas.
Giles was born in 1851 and is listed in the 1860 Bastrop Slave Census as one of 11 children of Emanuel and Betsy Madison.
Emanuel was born in 1810 in Tennessee - the son of Jim Madison, Ms. Hester said.
According to family oral history, Jim Madison was the son of President James Madison Jr. from a relationship he had with a slave cook named Corrine at Montpelier Plantation.
“She would be our great, great, great, great grandmother,” Ms. Warner said.
Two experts in genetics and genealogy along with a legion of black Madisons who want to know about their heritage have actively pursued the connection to the president.
Dr. Bruce Jackson, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, also oversees the African-American DNA Roots Project.
Jackson said the plan is to compare Y chromosomes - which are identical across generations - of male descendants in Madison’s family to the Y chromosomes of black Madisons.
Dr. Bettye Kearse, 64, a Massachusetts pediatrician with a bachelor’s degree in genetics and a Ph.D. in biology, aids Jackson in his quest.
She is a third cousin to both Ms. Warner and Ms. Hester. Her great grandfather, Mack Madison, was a brother to Giles Madison - their great grandfather.
Dr. Kearse said they share an earlier ancestor named Mandy - a slave girl who was brought to Montpelier in the late 1700s from Ghana, West Africa.
James Madison Sr. later impregnated Mandy and she bore a daughter named Corrine, she said.
Dr. Kearse said she believes the oral history that says James Madison Jr. had a relationship with Corrine - who would have been his half-sister. She said Corrine named the child James Madison, although he later went by the name Jim.
History bears out the fact that Madison had no children by his wife, Dolley.
Dr. Kearse said when Jim was grown he was sold and sent away to Tennessee. Before the wagon pulled away, Corrine ran to him and told him something that has remained in family folklore for two centuries.
“Always remember you’re a Madison,” Corrine told her son.
Dr. Kearse said she may have said it as a device to ensure the two might meet again one day. As it worked out, they never saw each other again.
But she said the motto became a part of the family heritage. It gave inspiration to generations of Madisons who would make something of themselves knowing they had a president’s blood in their veins.
No smoking gun
Jackson said finding DNA donors from the white Madison line in America has been problematic. There are no volunteers.
A Madison descendent who was a potential donor surfaced in 2007 but has not yet agreed, Jackson said.
“Things are not going well with the American Madisons,” he said. “We’ve had a couple of terse messages from them.”
Jackson is searching abroad for Madison relatives to donate DNA samples.
“We anticipated this years ago and contracted with a genealogical researcher in England,” he said.
Jackson said DNA alone is not enough. Even if they establish identical Y chromosomes through white Madisons it would not necessarily mean Jim was the president’s child. He could be the child of another family member, he said.
“The same thing happened with the Jefferson descendents in the Sally Hemings case,” he said. “The critics will say you can’t prove it.”
From the early 19th century on it was rumored that Jefferson had a child, Tom, by Sally Hemings, a chambermaid at Monticello who was the half sister to his wife, Martha.
Jackson said what makes the Jefferson-Hemings case different is a paper trail.
Documents show that after Martha died in 1792 Jefferson went to Paris in 1794. He later summoned Sally to join him to serve as a caretaker for his young daughter. She returned home to Monticello with a child of her own.
“That is a problem with Madison,” Jackson said.
“The documentation isn’t there to lend credence to it,” he said. “And DNA evidence could indicate that Madison or his brothers were responsible for impregnating Corrine. Any Madison could be responsible for Jim.”
Dr. Kearse said she is not mystified by the white Madison line’s reticence.
“I can understand their position to stay out of controversy like you see in the Jefferson-Hemings case,” she said.
Austin ancestors
Ms. Warner and Ms. Hester do have documentation that solidly links them to two notables in Austin history.
Records show that Henry Green Madison, a farmer and shoemaker, was the first black citizen to serve as an alderman on Austin’s City Council. Reconstruction Gov. E.J. Davis appointed him in 1871.
Madison and his family lived in a one-room cabin on East 11th Street for 20 years. A farmhouse was later built around it. A wrecking crew discovered the cabin in modern times. The cabin was moved to Rosewood Recreation Center in 1973 and restored.
“He was one of eight brothers - all sons of Emanuel Madison - and the brother of our great-grandfather Giles Madison,” said Ms. Hester. “It would make him our grand uncle.”
Ms. Warner and Ms. Hester also share ancestry with another notable from Austin’s early days.
“In mid-1839, three months after Austin was designated the capital of the Republic, 10-year-old Mahala Murchison arrived in town,” said Bernadette Phifer, curator of the George Washington Carver Museum in Austin.
Mahala came to Texas with the family of Alexander Murchison, she said.
“She was the first black person in Austin, working as a maid, living in a tent near where the Congress Avenue Bridge is now,” Ms. Phifer said.
The location was the site of an old fort on the banks of the Colorado River. The only other residences in Austin at the time were two log cabins.
History records that within three months an influx of settlers and slaves arrived to lay out the original old town site of Austin.
Mahala had six children by Frank Strain, said Ms. Warner. Genealogical research shows Mahala’s children and grandchildren were upwardly mobile, educated and progressive and became teachers, business owners, property owners and government service workers.
A daughter, Fannie Strain, married Giles Madison - Ms. Warner’s and Ms. Hester’s great grandfather.
Records show Mahala’s second child, Frank Jr., built a home in an exclusive white subdivision in the University neighborhood at 2504 Speedway. County records show Mahala died there in 1912 and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery.
Does the link to Madison matter?Dr. Kearse said it doesn’t matter to her if DNA evidence and documentation ever proves conclusively that she is a descendent of President Madison.
She has written a book - ‘The Other Madisons: On Being an African American Descendent of an Antebellum President.’
The motto, “Always remember you are a Madison” plays a part in it.
“The saying came from a time of significant change. It was a tool for finding one another. It also became a source of pride,” she said.
Dr. Kearse said freedom was something that had to be survived. Jim Crow law was not what the freed slaves imagined freedom would be. Things didn’t really change until the Civil Rights era, she said.
“My mother grew up in Bastrop proud to be descended from both a president and slaves,” she said.
Dr. Kearse said both the Civil Rights era and the Women’s Equal Rights movement skewed her experiences and she began to question being proud in the way her mother’s generation was.
“I’m more proud of being descended from Mandy,” Dr. Kearse said.
She said Mandy survived being brought from Africa and enslaved and forced to have a child by her master.
“I believe there is no way that if Mandy or Corrine wanted to say no (to their masters) they would have been able to,” she said.
Significance of a link
Ms. Warner said some have asked why it is so important to establish a direct descent from James Madison, the president.
“I think all black people should know their roots,” she said. “It all started with Alex Haley and his book.”
She said her ancestors did not come from Africa with names like Madison or Jefferson or Jackson.
“Those names came from the slave masters who gave them their family name when they bought them. And more often than not the masters had children by their female slaves,” she said.
“It’s the right and privilege of all to know their true legacy and heritage.”
Ms. Hester said she had to admit she was hesitant when her cousin first posed the idea and showed her all the research.
“I was skeptical,” she said. “But as I began to explore the documents and see the research she had done I became, to say the least, very excited.
“What thrills me is the heritage of our family.”
