Lincoln Connection.....What Do Ya Know!

As I was kanoodling around in the Hanks/Lincoln genealogy/family tree I discovered that I too have a very distant via "marriage in our allied families" connection to Mr. Lincoln.

Yeah, everywhere I turn I uncover family connections to just about everyone. lolz

Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham, had a sister(not sure if they are full siblings though as both their fathers are unknown)named Sarah Hanks.

Sarah Hanks, herself, also had an illegitimate child, a daughter named Margaret Hanks.

This Margaret Hanks, who was a full 1st cousin to Abraham Lincoln, married Andrew LeGrand.

Andrew LeGrand is a descendant of Pierre LeGrand, one of the Huguenot immigrants who arrived in 1700 on the "Peter and Anthony", the second ship of Huguenots to arrive in the Virginia Colony.

*Readers will remember that my direct 8th Great Grandparents, Abraham Soblet and Susanne Briant Soblet, along with their son, my 7th X Grat Grandfather, Pierre Jean Soblet, arrived in Virginia as well in 1700 on the first ship of Huguenots, the "Mary and Ann".  But I digress.....

The LeGRAND line down to Andrew--

Pierre LeGrand
Jean Pierre LeGrand
Abraham LeGrand
William Thomas LeGrand
John Harris LeGrand
Andrew Jackson LeGrand

Abraham LeGrand(Andrew's Great Grandfather)had a brother, Peter LeGrand.

The LeGRAND line that hooks into my family--

Pierre LeGrand
Jean Pierre LeGrand
Peter LeGrand
Nash LeGrand
Rebecca Holmes Nash
Hunter Holmes Marshall m. Sarah Stith

Peter's son, Nash LeGrand married Margaret Holmes and they had a daughter, Rebecca Holmes Nash.

Rebecca married John Marshall and their son was Hunter Holmes Marshall(the original owner of Roxabel Plantation-which my great grandparents bought in the early 1930's).

HH Marshall married Sarah Wilmer Stith, who is my 4th cousin 5 x removed.
Sarah Stith and I share common ancestors in Drury Stith and Susanna Bathurst(Sarah's 3 x GGs, my 8 x GGs).

To put it another way, Abe Lincoln is the 1st cousin of the wife of my 3rd cousin of the husband of my 4th cousin 5 x removed.

Yep, early European immigrants to American shores are just a big ol' fun ball of incestuous relations.

My own Grandma, Sluggy

Lincoln's Maternal Mystery Solved

I mentioned that on our Spring road trip last year we stopped by a museum in Bardstown, Kentucky on our way to Louisiana.

This little museum, being in Kentucky, had lots of Lincoln memorabilia(the wooden door off the cabin in which he was born or lived in, etc.), as well as some genealogical info.....

Once you get beyond Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, it's all conjecture and theory as to his maternal grandparents.
There are/were 3 different theories on whom Lincoln's mother's parents were........

1. Abraham and Sarah Hanks of Campbell County VA
2. James Hanks and Lucy Shipley
3. Lucy Hanks and Unknown(born Illegitimate)

That museum in KY went with the James Hanks and Lucy Shipley theory.

I could expound upon each of these theories and bore and mystify you with the tangled genealogies of each but I won't.  It's too early in the morning to make your brains ache. ;-)

I tended to go with theory #3 as it made the most sense, knowing the familial associations of the Hanks family.

It is well known that Lucy Hanks' sister, also named Nancy(like Lucy's daughter), had an illegitimate son, Dennis Friend Hanks.  So there is precedent that the Hanks clan was "comfortable" with out of wedlock births.
Not so the society, as Lucy Hanks was brought up on fornication charges in 1789(5 years after she gave birth to Nancy)in Mercer County, KY.  Having sex outside of marriage at that time was a criminal offense.  This shows a pattern that Lucy Hanks was sexually active outside of marriage.

There is also anecdotal evidence that Lincoln himself thought himself illegitimate and he made veiled comments to his law partner, William Henry Herndon, on this subject.

* Incidentally, I am also related to William Henry Herndon, as he is my 3rd cousin 5 x removed.  William's mother was Rebecca Day Herndon.  Rebecca's parents were Edward Day, Sr. and Ursula Sublett Day.  Ursula Sublett was the sister of my 5 x Great Grandmother, Martha Sublett.  But that's a story for another time.

There is another far flung "theory" that Nancy Hanks was born into the Tanner family and raised by Abraham Enlow of Rutherford, NC.

Seems everybody and their brother over the past 100 years has wanted to be related to Abraham Lincoln.
With the exception of me it seems. ;-)

Anyway, you can throw all these theories out the window now.

A mitochondrial DNA study has been performed in the past year to determine Lincoln's maternal line.

Since Nancy Hanks Lincoln has no living direct descendants(let alone any descendants on her direct maternal line, as that Hanks/Lincoln branch died out when the last living descendant of Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln, their 2 x Great Grandson, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died in 1985), matrilineal descendant tests had to be conducted.  This requires testing of other branches of the Hanks family who share the same female line and thus the same mtDNA.

Known and proved descendants of other female relatives descended from the Hanks family were tested, including Lucy Hank's other illegitimate daughter, Sarah Hanks(Nancy's sister)and Lucy's three daughters with Henry Sparrow.  Also tested were the two daughters of Ann Lee Hanks, Nancy Hanks and Mary Hanks.  If Lucy was also a daughter of Ann Lee Hanks, then these two supposed sisters would carry the same haplogroup, and they did.
All the descendants of these women belong to a fairly rare haplogroup called X1c.

These results were compared to matrilineal testing done on the mitochondrial results of the Shipley family(the theory that Nancy Hank's mother was born Lucy Shipley).  This line belongs to the H haplogroup, putting to bed forever the theory that Nancy Hanks was the daughter of James Hanks.
Lucy Hanks was born a Hanks and Nancy was born out of wedlock and her father will never be known.

You can read a synopsis of the Nancy Hanks Lincoln Study HERE.  It also shows a descent chart to help you keep everybody straight as the Hanks family tended to name many of their female children Nancy.
DNA has proved to be a powerful, unequivocal tool in solving, yet unsolvable genetic mysteries.

Sluggy