date of this marriage as September 23d. This error arose from a
clerical blunder in the county record of marriages. The minister, the
Rev. Jesse Head, in making his report, wrote the date before the
names; the clerk, copying it, lost the proper sequence of the entries,
and gave to the Lincolns the date belonging to the next couple on the
list.] while learning his trade in the carpenter shop of Joseph Hanks,
in Elizabethtown, he married Nancy Hanks, a niece of his employer,
near Beechland, in Washington County. [Transcriber's Note: Lengthy
footnote (1) relocated to chapter end.] She was one of a large family
who had emigrated from Virginia with the Lincolns and with another
family called Sparrow. They had endured together the trials of pioneer
life; their close relations continued for many years after, and were
cemented by frequent intermarriage.

Mrs. Lincoln's mother was named Lucy Hanks; her sisters were Betty,
Polly, and Nancy who married Thomas Sparrow, Jesse Friend, and Levi
Hall. The childhood of Nancy was passed with the Sparrows, and she was
oftener called by their name than by her own. The whole family
connection was composed of people so little given to letters that it
is hard to determine the proper names and relationships of the younger
members amid the tangle of traditional cousinships. [Footnote: The
Hanks family seem to have gone from Pennsylvania and thence to
Kentucky about the same time with the Lincolns. They also belonged to
the Communion of Friends.--"Historical Collections of Gwynnedd," by H.
M. Jenkins.] Those who went to Indiana with Thomas Lincoln, and grew
up with his children, are the only ones that need demand our
attention.

There was no hint of future glory in the wedding or the bringing home
of Nancy Lincoln. All accounts represent her as a handsome young woman