This is a timeline on Wikipedia. I thought they did a good job with Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. I also read in other sources her parent heritage was confused. To read source after source only made it more confusing. This wa helpful to recognize her life from the time she was born.
It is understandable that "Good Christian Women" in the late 17 hundreds would have large families. The truth is even though large families occurred the children did not always live. Modern medicine was on the horizon and "The Pill" would be provided to the American woman in the 1960s.
Abraham Lincoln had a sister and a brother. Sarah died when she was 21 years old and Thomas Lincoln, Jr. died in childbirth. Needless to say Nancy, Lincoln's mother, had her fair share of heartache. She also had a childhood where she was shuffled around from one couple to another until she finally was old enough to learn a profession. Nancy would become a seamstress. She had a strong work ethic.
...Noted historian Louis Warren, an expert on Abraham Lincoln, stated in his writings that Nancy's mother was Lucinda Lucy Shipley Hanks, daughter of Robert Shipley, Jr., but nothing is really known for certain about Nancy's father. However, he was said to be James Hanks, son of Joseph Hanks. According to Louis Warren, James Hanks passed away in 1785. Lucinda Shipley Hanks was often confused by biographers with Lucy Hanks, the daughter of Joseph Hanks, but they were two different people.
According to Abraham Lincoln's law partner, William Herndon, Abraham once said that his maternal grandfather was "a well-bred Virginia farmer or planter." During the same conversation, Abraham said of his mother, "God bless my mother; all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to her." (It should be noted that this statement has never been verified other than having Herndon’s word for it.)
It is stated those words were never verified, but, he was her one surviving child and she herself knew and appreciated work as a way of life. During her time agrarian economies was the rule of the day. Working for someone who paid wages would be a treasured character that would be shared with her son.
Little is known of Nancy's early life. As a child Nancy was taken by her mother along the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. Young Nancy went to live with Lucy’s sister, Rachel Shipley Berry, and her husband Richard Berry, Jr., in Beechland, Kentucky, in Washington County. She lived with the Berrys until she married Thomas Lincoln. Why she didn’t go to live with her mother after Lucy remarried is not known.
As Nancy grew up, she became skilled in the art of needlework, and she became an excellent seamstress. She was hired to sew anything from wedding gowns to funeral attire. Nancy became known for her work ethic, neatness, cheerfulness, and intelligence. She was deeply religious. Her cousin, John Hanks, described Nancy as having dark hair, hazel eyes, 5-7 in height, a delicate frame, weighing 120 pounds, and "was loved and revered by all who knew her." No photographs of Nancy exist.
Nancy sometimes lived briefly with families she was sewing for; her services were in demand in Hardin, Mercer, and Washington counties. During the time Nancy was working as a seamstress she met Thomas Lincoln, a carpenter from Elizabethtown. A romance developed, and the two decided to be married.
On
June 12, 1806, Nancy Hanks and Thomas Lincoln were married; presiding
over the ceremony was the Reverend Jesse Head. The couple moved to a
cabin in Elizabethtown (Kentucky) where Thomas worked as a carpenter making
cabinets, door frames, even coffins. The Lincolns joined the Little
Mount Separate Baptist Church. A daughter, Sarah, was born to the couple on February 10, 1807....To the right is believed to be a picture of Nancy Hanks as a young woman. It would seem accurate. She strongly resembles her son.
