Hi:
My name is David E. Williams. My mother (where we get the Lincoln blood) is Martha Belle Shanklin. And her daddy was Lindsey Shanklin from Hopkinsville, KY. We are related back to Lincoln’s father’s father to Bethsheba Lincoln and Abigail Herring.
We’ve known this for a few years now. My mom’s youngest sister, Carolyn Shanklin Wyatt, (also from Hopkinsville, KY) you can add her on Facebook, is where we learned we’re related to Lincoln due to her research she did on Ancestry.com
I really, really really believe at heart that we’re related to A. Lincoln. But I’m still wanting to prove this. Is Ancestry.com a good source? And 2. if we had the Ancestry DNA done on my mom, would that prove this?
My mom has an ancestry chart done on Ancestry.com but for Lincoln’s name she had to pencil it in. Which if I were trying to prove this to someone they’d probably not believe we’re really related.
What do you say?
David
? ? ?
Dear David,
Since it is the collective product of a number of genealogists, Ancestry.com would be as good a place as any to consult. The only other one I could think of would be the Church of Latter Day Saints, who are obsessed with chronicling genealogy and keep meticulous records of their work—they might be able to help you trace yours. (I happen to have a distant Mormon cousin who was into applying that kind of thing to the family and one result led me to seek out and pay a mutual surprise visit to a distant cousin in Budapest who turned out to be the last surviving Hungarian in the Guttman/Newman clan).
Good luck.
Sincerely,
Jon Guttman
Research Director
World History Group
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