Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 1, 1994                   TAG: 9406030080
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Medium

HAIR STRAND FOUND AT HISTORIC HOME LIKELY WASHINGTON'S

A single brown hair that had been wrapped in paper and kept at Tudor Place, the former home of Martha Washington's granddaughter, had a DNA sequence that appeared to match that of two Washington family descendants.

``The limited DNA sequence information that we did get would not exclude this hair as originating from George Washington,'' said Douglas Deedrick, a hair and fiber expert at the FBI's crime lab in Washington, D.C.

The DNA tests, performed nearly 200 years after Washington's death, came about after Diane Dunkley, director of the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, began searching through objects for a Washington exhibit.

She asked the FBI to verify some hair samples she found, and Deedrick's unit agreed to help.

Using new genetic technology, the FBI looked at 11 hair samples submitted by DAR, Tudor Place, Colonial Williamsburg and three other museums. Scientists first viewed the samples under a powerful microscope before attempting to test their mitochondrial DNA, or the genetic building blocks that lie outside the cell nucleus.

``The analysis was essentially to see what types of DNA sequences we would get out of the hairs,'' Deedrick said in a phone interview.

Two of the hair samples, including one from Colonial Williamsburg, were not genetically tested because they were not long enough. Testing of eight others was inconclusive because of a lack of DNA, Deedrick said.

The remaining hair was found in Tudor Place, a mansion in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., that is owned by the Tudor Place Foundation. Presumably, the hairs were in the house from the time it was built between 1805 and 1816, said Anne Webb, assistant curator and archivist for the foundation. Tudor Place originally belonged to Martha Peter, granddaughter of Washington's wife.

The hairs were found after the home was turned over to the foundation in 1984 for use as a museum, Webb said. The date on the paper containing the hairs was 1781, 18 years before Washington's death.

``They've just been here forever as far as I know,'' she said. ``They stayed in the family the whole time.''

While not very distinct, the DNA in the strand of hair from Tudor Place was clear enough to be compared with that of hairs taken from two seventh-generation, female-line Washington descendants: Rhodie Funkhouser, 67, and her cousin, Eleanor Johnston, 70.

The women's hair was tested because mothers pass DNA information to all their children, but only daughters pass on the specific code sequence to the next generation. If there had not been a daughter in every generation of the Washington family, the line would have ended.

The genetic evidence supported Deedrick's microscopic analysis that the hair was authentic, Deedrick said. He added that all 11 hairs appeared to be genuine.

``I would say there's a good chance that all of them could have come from George Washington,'' he said.