The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-12-29
SEARCH PROVES
KINSHIP OF LEE
And LINCOLN
Amazing Blood Link Found
Between Great Figures
of Civil War.

BIZ Times Special
NEW YORK, Dec. 29-Abraham
Lincoln was a descendant of the ia
nous Lee family of Virginia and
related directly to the man whom
he contested the fate of the nation,
General Robert E. Lee.
Lincoln was not, as popular be-
lief would have him, the product
of undistinguished progenitors.
Though born in a log cabin, he
was but two generations removed
from the stately mansions of one
Of the proudest names in early
American history.
These statements, upsetting some
Of the most deep-seated of Ameri-
can traditions, are the result of
careful research conducted by DR..
William E. Barton, an able gene
alogist and one of the best known
authorities on Lincoln. They are
published for the first time in Good
Housekeeping magazine for jan
uary.
Barton, who is, incidentally, the
father Of Bruce Barton and the
author of five widely read works on
Lincoln, traces the descent of both
the president and the general in a
direct line back to Col. Richard Lee,
one of the earliest of American
aristocrats.
Documentary Proof Found
"I am about to show, and for the
first time" he writes, that Abra-
ham Lincoln sprang from the fam
lily stock that gave to the south
and the nation some of its great
est and most aristocratic names.
There has been romancing enough.
This is a plain and truthful tale"
To establish this plain and
truthful tale" Barton spent years
examining documents in musty,
forgotten files in old Virginia,
whence the Lees and LincolnS came.
Old marriage records, dating back
to the first days Of the colonies, rec
ords of wills and property transfers
were scanned carefully and sifted
for period of years. And now the
blood relation of these men, who
were thought to have nothing in
common but their hold on the love
of their countrymen, is revealed.
Col Richard Lee, the Good House
keeping article shows, came to
America from England in 1912. He
had son, Richard Lee, through
whom the descent passed in direct
line to the famous general of the
Confederate forces.
But Col. Richard Lee had another
son, whose name is not recorded,
and that son named William. This
William Lee had many sons, and
one of them was named William,
also. This second William had a
daughter, Ann, who married one Jo-
lseph Hanks, owner of estates con-
ltiguous to the Lee plantation. And
EAnn Lee Hanks was the great
grandmother of Nancy Hanks, who
married Thomas Lincoln, June IL,
/ 1906. and became on Sunday, Feb.
IL, 1909, the mother of Abraham
Lincoln.
Lincoln Himself Didn't Knew
II is not strange that this infor-
nation should have remained hid
den for two generations after the
deaths of both the men it concerns,
since neither was aware of the
blood ties that bound him to his
enemy, says DR.. Barton.
Abraham Lincoln declared him
self to have descended from two of
what he called second or 'undis-
tinguiShed' families of Virginia. OF
his ancestry on the Hanks side he
possessed little knowledge and was
disinclined to discuss it. He prob
ably did not know from what county
his mothers people came"
But that Hanks ancestry, of which
Lincoln knew little and apparently
cared less, was one of the proudest
lineages in America, even apart
from its connection with the Lees.
1t goes back to Thomas Hanks, a
Cromwell adherent, who fed Eng
land in 1643 and settled in Virginia
on land adjoining that of Colonel
Lee, an ardent supporter of King
Charles I. 1.-THE loyalist ancestor
OF Robert E. Lee and the rebel an
cestor of Abraham Lincoln were
next-plantation neighbors in Glou-
cester county"