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It was August when Cassandra Mays-Lewis first contacted family members of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings and asked if she could join their private Internet chat group.

Lewis, who claimed to be a descendant of a Hemings nephew, was invited in, and while she didn't participate in the group's e-mail conversations, she did enjoy access to other members' online musings and strategizing. All they knew about her was what she posted on her Yahoo! profile: that she was a 67-year-old black woman and an avid gardener and quilter who counted African American genealogy among her hobbies.

Over time, members began to suspect that she was something else entirely: an infiltrator in their electronic midst.

This week they went public with their suspicions, alleging that Mays-Lewis is actually Nat Abeles, president of the Monticello Association, the family tree of Jefferson's white descendants and a group that last year voted overwhelmingly to deny Hemings's offspring a place in their exclusive ranks.

Leading the charge was David Works, a lineal descendant of Jefferson and a Hemings family ally, who said he examined the coding in Mays-Lewis's e-mail and discovered Abeles' handiwork.

A smoking gigabyte, if you will.

Abeles denied it, saying in an interview Wednesday that such subterfuge wasn't necessary since the chat group's e-mails were already being leaked to him by a disgruntled chatter who felt the group was engaged in "inappropriate behavior." "I don't recognize a Cassandra Lewis or whatever," he said.

But late yesterday, after Works threatened to have Abeles removed as president when the association meets in Charlottesville this weekend, Abeles said it was his wife who posed as the emphysema- suffering Cassandra to spy on the opposing camp. She did so without his knowledge, he said, admitting it only when he "confronted" her.

Abeles defended his wife's actions, saying "she just sat there and listened to what was going on. . . . She felt that it was important for people to know what was going on in the news group because they were planning all kinds of things that were illegal or threatening to the association."

Works wasn't buying it. "So I'm supposed to believe he's off the hook?" he said. "He's going to make her walk the plank? What would Gloria Steinem say to that?"

Thus begins the latest chapter in America's longest-running historical family feud, as the Jeffersons and their kin and the Hemingses and theirs gather in the shadow of Monticello for the annual family reunion.

The Hemings descendants have been guests at the retreat since 1999, after DNA tests linked a Jefferson male to one or more of Sally Hemings's children. But to say that the families have not mixed well is an understatement: Last year's affair devolved into a rancorous, racially charged shouting match that left many in tears and others vowing never to return.

This year's get-together was shaping up to be no less hostile even before Mays-Lewis was unfrocked.

Weeks ago, Abeles instituted limits on who could attend the group's Saturday night cocktail party, warning that extra security might be needed to keep out guests who arrived without a member to escort them. Abeles also said no guests could attend Sunday's graveside service.

Jefferson family member Lucian K. Truscott IV, who initiated the inclusion of the Hemings relatives and has been their most outspoken supporter, denounced the new rules as a thinly veiled attempt to keep them out. Truscott said he won't be intimidated from bringing his Hemings guests to the cemetery where his family is buried. As for the cocktail party, he said his group will stick together if turned away, and "have drinks on the front lawn while the white folks in blue blazers will be out back."

Several members of the Monticello Association have been outspoken against including the Hemingses, disputing the paternity claim and criticizing Truscott for feeding the media unfair characterizations of their group.

"We've gotten e-mails from the Hemingses, who have used pseudonyms to get information about my family that they aren't entitled to," said John H. Works Jr., a past president of the association and David Works's brother. "There are unclean hands on both sides."

While John Works said he intends to go to the reunion and "have a good time, like we used to," Truscott expects "a big confrontation" over the new restrictions and likely fallout over the Mays-Lewis affair.

As for this weekend, he said: "The only question I have is 'Who will be waiting to enforce these rules -- Nat or Cassandra, and what will she be wearing?"