Nancy Hanks' lineage

[Steve Whitlock]

Mr Norton,

I'm struggling to play nice here, but one wonders whether "a relative" (a nameless relative it seems) also had a bridge he might be willing to part with given his monetary issues. Out of nowhere "a relative" decides to sell the only picture there is of Thomas Lincoln to O.V. Flora, rather than getting a much higher price from other collectors, newspapers, etc. Since he is an unknown relative we can't authenticate the purchase, or source of said photo.

If I'm to disregard Robert Todd Lincoln, John J. Hall and other non-believers I need something stronger to go on. If the photo is genuine, great. If not, that's unfortunate. But I can't even begin to accept the O.V. Flora purchase of "Thomas Lincoln 1778-1851" if that's all we have for the story.

Thank you for the added information regarding the photo. That gives me something to try researching a bit more, rather than viewing it as a con job. I hadn't read about that account of how the photo came to light, but then I dismissed the photo early on as a fraud based on the Burlingame information and my own sense of when the photo was made, and other warning signals, that taken altogether was too much smoke to ignore.

On the other hand a little warning signal from my brain suggests that I not bury myself too quickly. If the photo is a fraud then I would have expected other purchasers to have been approached by "a relative" and to have bought the same photo, or another like it. I would also have expected by now that a whistle-blower would have appeared to say that the photo was his great grandfather, beloved uncle or at least someone he recognized. If the photo was acquired during the Civil War era surely there were some people still around who knew Thomas Lincoln and could corroborate the validity of the photo. John J. Hall and Matilda Johnston Hall, among many others, knew what he looked like.

Maybe I'm missing something here and am assuming they saw the photo. I need to regroup and try to gather more information before jumping to the conclusion I've already jumped to, which is that I can't accept the Lynch story of "a relative" and O.V. Flora as believable, if that is all there is for details.