This is one of my MOST EXCITING ancestral finds to date!  The connection, albeit extremely distant with the most impressive US Presidents of all time …  Honest Abe is my 6th cousin 5x removed. I said it was distant … hehe!

I posted yesterday on my connection to Obadiah Holmes, the important member of the Baptist church who was whipped for his beliefs, this amazing man was the 5th great grand-father of another revolutionary man who needs no introduction or biography, the great emancipator, Abraham Lincoln!

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My Lineage

Abraham Lincoln served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the United States through its Civil War— its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, paved the way for the abolition of slavery.

In 1840, Lincoln became engaged to Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. They met in Springfield, Illinois, in December 1839 and were engaged the following December. A wedding set for January 1, 1841, was canceled when the two broke off their engagement. They later met again at a party and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary’s married sister.

The couple had four children. Robert Todd Lincoln was born in 1843 and Edward Baker Lincoln (Eddie) in 1846. Edward died on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, probably of tuberculosis. “Willie” Lincoln was born on December 21, 1850, and died of a fever on February 20, 1862. The Lincolns’ fourth son, Thomas “Tad” Lincoln, was born on April 4, 1853, and died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871. Robert was the only child to live to adulthood and have children.

On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, beating Douglas, Breckinridge, and Bell. He was the first president from the Republican Party.

On June 19, 1862, endorsed by Lincoln, Congress passed an act banning slavery on all federal territory.  Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation. In it, he stated that “as a fit and necessary military measure, on January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves in the Confederate states will thenceforward, and forever, be free”.  The Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862, and put into effect on January 1, 1863.

As we well know, President Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the surrender of Robert E. Lee and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.  Lincoln died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15.

In surveys of U.S. scholars ranking presidents conducted since the 1940s, Lincoln is consistently ranked in the top three, often as number one.

Pretty INTERESTING FIND to see that I have some connection to a US President, as I’ve previously said coming from Canada this line is FULL of amazing discoveries.

Only this ONE line goes back to the United States, let alone all of the way back to the foundation.  It’s also very exciting that in Canada I am also related to a Filles du Roi and Filles a Marrier, which is Canada’s equivalent of coming over on the Mayflower.

Tune in for the next blog to see what else I discover …

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