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While always a matter of only the most peripheral interest, Lincoln biographers and scholars have never been in entire agreement concerning the birthdate of Abraham Lincoln's mother Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
Nancy's cousin John Hanks, in a long interview conducted by William Herndon in 1865, stated only that Nancy was "about five years" younger than her husband. Since the 1778 birthdate of Thomas Lincoln is consistently supported by data gathered in the United States decennial censuses ofr the years 1810-1850, John Hanks' statement suggests that Nancy was born sometime in the vicinity of the year 1783. When Ward Hill Lamon, a longtime friend and associate of Lincoln, published in 1872 his Life of Lincoln, he stated that Nancy Hanks was "about twenty-three" when she married Lincoln's father. A birthdate around the year 1783 can be inferred from this statement.
The reports of the other early Lincoln biographers, and the data available to them, give no exact birthdate for his mother, but suggest the years 1782-1784.
It has been assumed by many that the matter was cleared up when, during the 1920's, the journalist, poet-and also Lincoln biographer-Carl Sandburg discovered that a manuscript from the early 1850's, in the handwriting of Lincoln's ne'er-do-well step-brother John D. Johnston, existed which appeared to be a contemporary copy of the family genealogy Abraham Lincoln had composed at the time of his father's death in 1851. This genealogy of the Lincoln-Johnston clan, written in Abraham Lincoln's own hand and inscribed in his recently deceased father's family Bible around 1851, had been known to scholars for years; but its first few lines, which had presumably given the birthdates of Thomas Lincoln and his wife Nancy Hanks, had through carelessness been torn off, prior to the time it was made available to scholars. The newly discovered John D. Johnston copy of that document gave Nancy Hanks Lincoln's birthdate as February 5, 1784. Most biographers subsequently accepted this as the correct date.
However, when subjected to closer analysis, the date (assuming Johnston copied it correctly) becomes a bit suspect as to its degree of accuracy. It must be remembered that 1851, the year the record was probably inscribed, is sixty-seven years after 1784, the date claimed for the event being recorded. Moreover, by 1851, Nancy Hanks Lincoln had already been dead for 33 years. It is a fact well-known to accomplished historical researchers and genealogists that when people try to reconstruct the birthdate of a departed parent or other family member, when that person was born a lifetime ago, they err with a significant degree of frequency. Prior to the time of civil birth and death certificates-and even after that time-the tombstones of more than a few departed loved ones were inscribed with a birthdate that may have reflected the correct mont and day, but which was in error as to the year of birth by a year or two.
Lincoln, in his campaign autobiographical sketches and other writings, is known to have made several dating errors concerning his family. For example. For example, he consistently stated that his father's father and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, was killed by Indians in Kentucky "about the year 1784," when his father was "but six years of age." It is now known, from records contemporary to that event, that the ambush of his paternal grandfather actually took place in 1786-two years later than Lincoln had said-when Lincoln's father was actually eight. In the 1851 family record, Lincoln made an error on the birthdate of of one of step-brother John D. Johnston's children-and that event occured less than eight years before the record was made.
Lincoln would have had, on the other hand, good reason to remember the month and day of his mother's birth, if his step-brother's copied entry accurately record what Lincoln had written. February 5 is exactly a week before Lincoln's own birthdate. But it seems far less likely that Lincoln, in 1851, could have conjured up the precise year of his long-deceased mother's entry into the world. Furthermore, a mistake could have been made in conveying to Lincoln the year of his mother's birth (if this was in fact conveyed), particularly since Thomas and Nancy Lincoln were both illiterate. Experiences stick the memory. Precise dates do not.
Taking all of the above into consideration, the date given in the John D. Johnston record for Lincoln's mother's birth-February 5, 1784-must be taken simply as an approximation. Normally, an error of plus-or-minus two years would need to be assigned to it, to assure a range of virtual certainty. But this range is limited by the fact that in the 1810 United Staes Census enumerations, the woman we know to be Nancy Hanks Lincoln is tallied in the age cohort "of 26, and under 45." Assuming this census record is accurate, it can be stated that Nancy was born no later than 1784, since she had passed her twenty-sixth birthday by the time the 1810 census enumerator came to the door. On this basis, the write makes the judgement that the mother of President Lincoln was almost certainly born in 1782, 1783, or 1784-and that the February 5's in each of those years are the dates that carry the highest probability.
If the above judgement and analysis are accurate, Richmond County in the Northern Neck of Virginia has a very strong basis on which to challenge Mineral County, West Virginia for the honor of being the birthplace of Lincoln's mother, since the Joseph Hanks family, it will be shown, was still in Richmond County in April of 1783-and possibly later.
Hopefully, more research will shed more light.
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