- Nancy Hanks
:"For the passenger train, see
Nancy Hanks (passenger train) . For theNational Endowment for the Arts chairman, seeNancy Hanks (NEA) ."Nancy Hanks Lincoln (February 5 ,1784 –October 5 ,1818 ) was the mother ofAbraham Lincoln and Sarah Lincoln and wife ofThomas Lincoln .Early life
Nancy Hanks was born in
Hampshire County ,Virginia (now Mineral County,West Virginia .)Marriage and Family
On
June 12 ,1806 , she marriedThomas Lincoln . A record of their marriage license is located at theWashington County, Kentucky courthouse.They had three children:
*Sarah Lincoln, bornFebruary 10 ,1807
*Abraham Lincoln , bornFebruary 12 ,1809
*Thomas Lincoln, died in infancyAccording to the minutes of a church in
Fauquier County, Virginia published in the The Genealogical Record by The Houston Genealogical Forum in Houston, Texas (Volume VII, Number 3, Sept., 1965). Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln, was baptized there. On page 13 of the Minutes of the Broad Run Baptist Church it states that Nancy Hanks was baptized on June 13, 1778. On page 14 it states her husband Luke Hanks was baptized on August 25, 1779. Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln was born in Campbell County, Virginia in 1784, six years after the Nancy Hanks mentioned in the minutes of the Broad Run Baptist Church. The Nancy listed there was probably the wife of Luke Hanks I.Actor
Tom Hanks is a distant relative of Nancy Hanks. [Fenster, Bob. "They Did What!? The Funny, Weird, Wonderful, and Stupid Things Famous People Have Done", Andrews Publishing, 2002. Page 55.] . The Hanks family is of possibleMelungeon descent (seeList of Melungeons ).Last Years
In 1816 Nancy Hanks and her family moved to Southern Indiana.
Death
On
October 5 ,1818 , Nancy Hanks Lincoln died of "milk sickness ", a disease contracted from drinking the milk of a cow that has eaten the poisonous white snakeroot. In the same year, several other people also died of "milk sickness" in the small town of Little Pigeon Creek in Spencer County,Indiana , where the Lincolns lived. Nancy Hanks Lincoln was only thirty-four years old when she died, and her son Abraham was only nine.Nancy Hanks Lincoln's grave is located in
Nancy Hanks Lincoln Cemetery , on the grounds of Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial inLincoln City, Indiana .Notes
External links
* [http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln81.html Abraham Lincoln's Parents]
* [http://www.geocities.com/marianapolis99/lincoln.htm The Maternal Lineage of Abraham Lincoln]
*Paul H. Verduin (1988), [http://www.geocities.com/marianapolis99/verduin.htm "New Evidence Suggests Lincoln's Mother Born in Richmond County, Virginia, Giving Credibility to Planter-Grandfather Legend"]
*Sturgill, David Andrew, [http://www.geocities.com/marianapolis99/sturgill.htm "Who Was Nancy Hanks Lincoln?"]
*David S. Keiser (1970), [http://www.geocities.com/marianapolis99/keiser.htm "How I Found Nancy Hanks' Father, Thomas Hanks, Without Trying"]
*Raymond Martin Bell andChristopher Challender Child (1997), [http://www.geocities.com/marianapolis99/raychr.htm "Mother of the President: Nancy Hanks Lincoln, 1784-1818"]
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