The "ten mothers" of Abraham Lincoln

[Ed Steers]

The genealogy of Lincoln is not all that complex. William Barton is as good a researcher as there is/was on the subject. Louis Warren also wrote an excellent book, "Lincoln's Parentage & Childhood (New York: The Century Company, 1926). Two major works exist in addition to Barton's and Warren's works: J. Henry Lea and J. R. Hutchinson, "The Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln" Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909), and Waldo Lincoln, "History of the Lincoln Family," (Boston: reprint: Goodspeed's Book Shop, Inc, 1981). Another excellent source are the publications of Louis Warren titled "The Lincoln Kinsman." These are a series of 54 pamphlets published between 1938 and 1942 covering every aspect of Lincoln's ancestry as well as that of the Hanks and other peripheral individuals. The research is solid in my opinion because it is supported by primary sources, and the counter claims are easily disproved by documentation. The history of Lincoln's parentage is much like the assassination story - filled with nonsense claims supported by a complete lack of serious research into the available primary documents. As James O. Hall liked to tell us: "Tell me what you want to believe and I will tell you what you will believe."
For those interested, I wrote an article titled "Nancy Hanks. West Virginian?" published in The Lincoln Herald,vol. 100, no. 2, p.61. I republished an edited version in my most recent, "Essays in History" (available from Amazon.com). The only controversy I see in the story of Lincoln's ancestry is the question of Nancy Hanks's alleged illegitimacy. Warren claims her mother Lucy was married to James Hanks who died shortly before Nancy Hanks was born. Young nancy was then deposited with the Berry family in Washington Co., KY where she grew up, met, and married Thomas Lincoln. Warren makes a good case for his claim in my opinion.