Little is known about the birth or early life of Nancy Hanks Lincoln, the mother of Abraham Lincoln.  The daughter of Lucy Hanks and an unknown father, Nancy was born in Virginia, probably in 1783 or 1784.  Speculation has identified the father as any number of southern gentlemen, and Abraham Lincoln himself believed that his maternal grandfather was from an aristocratic background.  In 1784, Nancy’s family moved from Virginia and settled in central Kentucky.  Six years later, her mother married Henry Sparrow at Harrodsburg.  On June 12, 1806, Nancy married Thomas Lincoln in Washington County, and the newlyweds moved to Elizabethtown, where they lived until 1808.  That year, Nancy, Thomas, and their one-year-old daughter, Sarah, moved to the Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville.  In February 1809, Nancy gave birth to a son, Abraham.  In 1812, after moving to a farm on nearby Knob Creek the previous year, Nancy gave birth to a second son, Thomas, who died in infancy.  On October 5, 1818, two years after the family moved to Indiana, Nancy Lincoln died from milk sickness.

Lowell H. Harrison, Lincoln of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).