Ann (Lee) Hanks (abt. 1742 - aft. 1794)

Born about 1742 in Richmond County, Virginia Colony [uncertain]

Ancestors

Wife of Joseph Hanks — married 26 May 1756 in Richmond County, Virginia Colony

Descendants

Died after 10 Jan 1794 after about age 52 in Virginia, United States [uncertain]

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This person is an ancestor of President Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President

Biography

Ann "Nanny" Lee was was born c.1742^[1] in Richmond County, Virginia Colony.^[2] The dates of her children's births range from 1759 to c.1784,^[1] so 1742 is possible, while 1728, the date asserted by some researchers, including Vicky Reany Paulson,^[2] is not.

Paulson states Ann is "of marriageable age" when she is mentioned in the will of her great-grandmother, Elizabeth Harwood Taylor, widow of Thomas Taylor;^[2] however, the transcription of the will itself makes no such statement. The will names Ann as a daughter of William Lee III (son of Elizabeth's daughter, Dorothy Taylor Lee Croucher and her first husband, William Lee, II) and his first wife, Ann Lee, possibly a cousin.^[3] (Mary Thornton was William's second wife, and the mother of Nanny's younger brothers.)

Elizabeth Taylor died about September 1747;^[4] her last will was filed in Richmond County, Virginia and stated:

In the name of God Amen, I, Elizabeth Taylor, of North Farnham Parish, being of sound mind and memory, thanks be to God for it, I do nominate and appoint this my Last Will and Testament in manner and form following. I give my soul to God who gave it and my body to be buried as my Executor hereafter named shall think fit.

ITEM It is my wish and desire that all my wearing apparel be equally divided between my two daughters, Dorothy Croucher and Sary Ellate, and my daughter Dorothy to have her choice.

ITEM I give to my great granddaughter Betty Lee, daughter to my grandson Tom Lee, one cow and calf, bed, rug, blanket, and three pairs of sheets, my Prayer Book, one hound, one yew, one lamb, pewter bason, my grate trunk, long iron pot, frying pan, my metal salt seller and looking glass.

ITEM I give to my great grandaughter Ann Lee, daughter of my son William Lee, cow and calf, yew and lamb, pewter bason and my small bag.

ITEM To my great grandaughter Lucy Lee, daughter of Dorothy, one cow and calf, one yew and lamb, and my small pewter bason, and my little trunk.

ITEM To my great grandson Richard Lee, son of Dorothy . . ..

ITEM I give to my grandson William Lee all the rest of my Estate I have not named, and appoint my grandson William Lee my whole and sole Ex. of my Last Will and Testament.

In witness hereunto set my hand and fix my seal this 11th day of May, 1747.

s/Elizabeth Taylor^[5]

Ann Lee married Joseph Hanks on 26 May 1756 in Richmond County, Virginia Colony,^[2] or at least "no later than 1758."^[3]

Children of the marriage:

1. Thomas Hanks (1759- c.1835)^[6]
2. Joshua Hanks (c.1762- c.1835)
3. William Hanks (c.1764- c.1851)
4. Lucy (Hanks) Sparrow (c.1766- c.1833)
5. Charles Hanks (c.1767- c.1828)
6. Elizabeth "Betty" (Hanks) Sparrow (christened 4 Mar 1771)^[7]
7. Mary "Polly" (Hanks) Friend (c.1773- c.1821)
8. Nancy (Hanks) Hall (c.1780-1829)
9. Joseph Hanks (c.1784-1856)

In the days when women's property was essentially owned by their husbands, "Joseph Hanks was named in the will of the younger William Lee, the son of William and Dorothy Taylor Lee, in 1764.... Joseph Hanks was left 2 lbs., 2 shillings, and 6 pence.... Joseph was married to his daughter Ann...."^[3]

Nanny and Joseph Hanks resided for many years in Richmond County, Virginia, where all but the last one of their children were born, and where Joseph worked as a plantation overseer and tenant farmer. In about 1782 the family migrated west to Mineral County (now West Virginia, where their youngest was born), then to Mercer County, Kentucky, and finally, in about 1787, they moved to Nelson County, Kentucky. Several of the children married in Kentucky. A few moved north and one, Charles, went southwest with some of Ann's brothers to Louisiana.

Joseph died in 1793 in Kentucky, leaving Nanny a life estate in their property.^[3] There is a story of Ann's return to Virginia after her husband's death. That account says she died in Virginia some time after assigning with her minor son Joseph to her other son William the family farm in Kentucky on 10 January, 1794. Joseph is said to have remained with her in Virginia until her death. He is said by a daughter-in-law and a grandson to have gone to be raised by a brother, either Thomas or Joshua Hanks, in Hardy County, now-West Virginia c.1794,^[1] and next recorded in Hardin County, Kentucky tax records in 1805.^[3][1]

Ann "Nanny" Lee was a great-grandmother of President Abraham Lincoln through her teen-aged daughter Lucey Hanks and an unnamed man likely to have been a Virginia planter. Lucey's connection to Joseph Hanks and Ann Lee is cemented by DNA.^[8]

For years there was controversy largely perpetuated by the now widely discredited Caroline Hanks Hitchcock in her Nancy Hanks, the Story of Abraham Lincoln's Mother, (New York: Doubleday, 1899), concerning the parentage of Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, who was born outside of wedlock to Lucey Hanks. Mrs. Hitchcock confused Lincoln's mother with her aunt Nancy, wrote that Nanny Hanks was Nancy Shipley, and that Joseph Hanks descended from an altogether different line of Hanks.^[9]

A DNA study has determined that matrilineal descendants of both Lucey Hanks Sparrow and Ann "Nanny" (Lee) Hanks carry haplogroup X1c, while those of Sarah (Dorsey?) Shipley carry haplogroup H, thereby proving the Hanks genetic link and disproving a Shipley one.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Paul H. Verduin, "Appendix: Brief Outline of the Joseph Hanks Family," (compiled January 1995) in Herndon's Informants: Letters, Interviews and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, Douglas L. Wilson and Rodney O. Davis, editors (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998) pp. 779-783.

   Note that the appendix does not cite sources.

2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3} Vicky Reany Paulson, Abraham Lincoln's Hanks Family Genealogy, Vol. 2 (Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2014) pp. 83-88

   p. 86: "She has 2 great granddaughters, of marriageable age.... Ann Lee and Elizabeth Lee are the two granddaughters [sic] mentioned in the Will of Elizabeth Taylor's Will [sic], the two oldest children of William Lee III. With records from their two younger brothers, Mark and Peter, that are found at Natchez Parish [sic], we find William Lee III had two wives, the first being Ann Lee, not known if this is a cousin, or from another branch of Lee's, and his second Mary Thornton. I did not find the christening records of daughters Ann and Elizabeth, at North Farnham Parish."

   p. 87: "...documents of brothers Mark and Peter Lee, in Natchez, who state their father had two wives, Ann Lee and Mary Thornton, who was born on May 13th, 1724...."

   p. 88: "Ann Lee, born in 1728, Richmond, Virginia [source not cited]...died on October 8, 1808 in Rockingham County, Virginia, [source not cited]...married Joseph Hanks on May 26, 1856 in Richmond County, Virginia. [source not cited]

3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4} Vicky Reany Paulson, Abraham Lincoln's Hanks Family Genealogy ("HFG, vol. 1") (Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2013) pp. 45, 66.
4. ↑ Vicky Reany Paulson, Abraham Lincoln's Hanks Family Genealogy, Vol. 2 (Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2014) pp. 83, 86.
5. ↑ Will of Elizabeth Harwood Taylor, Richmond County, Virginia, May 11, 1747, County of Richmond, Will Book #5, pp. 531-532.
6. ↑ Paulson's ancestor. In HFG, vol. 1, p. 45 she claims to have a christening record and pension records indicating the birth year was 1759, citing thusly at the end of the section, p. 60, "References For This Section":

   Records of Richmond County, Virginia

   Baptismal Records for North Farnham Parish Church

7. ↑ "Virginia Births and Christenings, 1584-1917," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VRR4-Q6W : 05 Dec 2014) citing FHL#975.523 V2K; Ann in entry for Betty Hanks
8. ↑ Christopher C. Child, "The Hanks DNA Study: I Was Wrong!" in "Genetics & Genealogy," American Ancestors Magazine 2016/Fall by NEHGS; with family chart (near end of pdf)
9. ↑ Paulson, HFG, vol. 1, p. 66-68; citing William Barton's statement in The Lineage of Lincoln (1929):

   "The two surprising things about this slender book are, first, so much misinformation could have been contained in so small a volume, and secondly, that so many usually discriminating people could have been deceived by it. ... It was hopelessly unreliable."

   And citing J. Henry Lea, author of The Ancestry of Lincoln, (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909):

   "... is utterly impossible. Moreover, Joseph Hanks, who in Jan. 1747... in Amelia County, Virginia, would have been too old for identification with Joseph, son of William, who could not have been that age, at that date, while he would have been too old for identification with Joseph Hanks, as father of Nancy Hanks, mother of the President.... So that in either case, the pedigree fails us in its present form."

See Also:

• Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1908-1984) v20 #4 (Jan 1928) p. 512 JSTOR digital library

• American Ancestors Magazine 2016, vol. 17 #3 pp. 56-57 by New England Historic Genealogical Society (with online database)

• New England Ancestors Magazine, Winter 2003 vol. 4.1 pp. 25-29, 55 by New England Historic Genealogical Society (with online database)

• Ann Lee, citing American Ancestors Magazine, 2016, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 55-57, New England Historic Genealogical Society (Online Database).

• http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=jhlawr5&id=I5283
• Merged with Wiki Tree Tree