Lincoln Family Connection
As long as I can remember, this factoid of our lineage to Abraham Lincoln was told to each generation of us kids in the Falk Family. We knew that our grandpa Eugene Lamar’s side of the family was the connection; this was my grandma Normas’ father. A few years ago I started to collect stories from our family in the hope to not only preserve them for future generations but to discover new and interesting parts of our families history and lineage. This has been an absolutely fascinating and fulfilling few years.
Some may wonder how could we be related to this great man, since we’ve lived in a rural Kansas town and Abraham Lincoln’s lineage documents he was born in Hardin (LaRue) County, Kentucky and grew up in Indiana’s Hurricane Township of Perry County (which later became Carter Township of Spencer County), and then moving in 1830 to Illinois with his extended family where his story is well known related to his adulthood leading to his presidency of this great nation.
I’m excited to tell the story of how we are related to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States.
One day when I was at my parents house telling some of the interesting stories I had started to uncover, I asked them how ‘exactly’ are we related to Abraham Lincoln? We were always told we were cousins, but I wanted to know the line. My mom went to the basement and brought back a stack of five old green bound books; Kansas And Kansans. The set of books are a ‘Standard History of Kansas and Kansans’, collected and written by Wiliam E. Connelley in 1918, who was the Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. In book five on page 2613 there is a excerpt about Lewis J. Lamar.
Our connection to the Lincoln family is within the Hanks bloodline. In the book ‘Kansas And Kansans’ the excerpt written by William Connelley gave some additional information that allowed me to begin to connect the dots for our family; now seven generations removed. The second paragraph of the writing states: “Mr. Lamar was born at Nashville, Illinois, July 31, 1879. His grandfather was a Frenchman and on coming to America settled in Pennsylvania, where he married into a family of Pennsylvania Dutch. Lewis J. Lamar’s maternal grandmother was a member of the Hanks family and was a sister of the mother of Abraham Lincoln.”
Lewis J. Lamar was the son of Elisha & Nancy (Lynch) Lamar. He was elected as Mayor of McFarland, in 1917, and there are many historical facts captured in this writing of the Lamar family, for this part of the Lamar family story I’ll focus on this paragraph related to the Hanks as the little tidbits that have given me enough to start to uncover quite interesting details about the Hanks, Lincoln and Lamar lineage and how they intertwined.
Additionally in the book, Connelly documents “Elisha Lamar was born in Spencer County, Indiana in 1841 and would visit with his parents (Joseph Lynch & Lydia Hall) the town of Lincoln, Indiana.” Lincoln, Indiana (in Spencer County) as it is presently referred to, had been a thriving community in the early 1800’s referenced as Little Pigeon Creek Community, along Little Pigeon Creek.[3]
Little Pigeon Creek was a quite small community at this time; in 1820 there were 40 families making up this community; many of them having lived in the Hardin Kentucky area.
It has been well documented that the Little Pigeon Creek Community was where the Hanks and Lincoln families resided; Thomas Lincoln and his family (Abraham & Sarah) were in the Little Pigeon Creak area as early as 1816 as this is where Abraham Lincoln’s mother Nancy died in 1818 of milk-sickness.
We can establish the Hanks in Little Pigeon Creek as well based on the details provided in the appendix of Brief Outline of Joseph Hanks Family published by the University of Illinois Press 1998 where it references Elizabeth Hanks who married Thomas Sparrow followed the Lincolns in 1817 to Little Pigeon Creek with the family of Levi & Nancy (Hanks) Hall who married in 1802; relocating from Hardin Ky to Pigeon Creek area in 1825.
The Lamar family was also one of the early settler families of this area. We know this because Elisha Lamar’s grandfather, Samuel Lamar and his family were also members of the Little Pigeon Baptist Church, names can be found in the church minutes as early as 1818 but documentation of the Lamar’s in this area can also be confirmed with tax records showing Samuel as a land taxpayer in 1815; providing reference the Lamar’s resided in the same community as the Lincolns, Hanks, Lynch, Halls families; to which we are related.
Now you may ask, are you ‘sure’ we are related to Abraham Lincoln? Or many may ask for ‘proof’ that we are related (especially since there has been misinformation and assumptions surrounding Lincoln’s mother). Just because the families lived in the same small community doesn’t provide ‘proof’ perse of relation.
Yes, we have proof.
Remember that, the excerpt stated that “Lewis J. Lamar’s maternal grandmother was a member of the Hanks family and was a sister of the mother of Abraham Lincoln.” Lewis’ maternal grandmother was Lydia (Hanks) Hall.
With the power of DNA, a study was announced on October 21, 2015, of the matrilineal kin of Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks and this study has demonstrated that Lincoln's mitochondrial DNA belonged to a very rare haplogroup X1c, and has provided evidence of the maternal ancestry of Nancy Hanks Lincoln. In the chart below from the DNA study, it’s clear DNA was submitted by mtDNA Donor Kit 424653 that directly connects our Lamar family with the Hanks lineage and more specifically confirming that our Great Grandmother Nancy Hanks Hall was in fact Lucy Hanks sister and Abraham Lincoln our cousin as the excerpt from the Kansas and Kansans book recorded.
So many exciting connections, people and stories in our family lineage and I’m excited to continue to collect, detail and document these for our future generations.