My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguishable families--second families, perhaps I should say.

My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.

My paternal grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, emigrated from Rockingham County, Virginia, to Kentucky, about 1781 or '2, where, a year or two later, he was killed by Indians, not in battle, but by stealth, when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest.

His ancestors, who were Quakers, went to Virginia from Berks County, Pennsylvania.
An effort to identify them with the New England family of the same name, ended in nothing more than a similarity of Christian names in both families, such as Enoch, Levi, Mordecai, Solomon, Abraham, and the like.
My father, at the death of his father, was but six years of age, and he grew up literally without education.

He removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana, in my eighth year.
We reached our new home about the time the State came into the Union.