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1. Who were Abraham Lincoln's parents?

His father, Thomas Lincoln, descended from a long line of Lincolns, originally Quakers, who immigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1637. His mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, had an ambiguous family background and may have been illegitimate. While Nancy was withdrawn and melancholy, Thomas was convivial and hard-working, despite rumors that he was an alcoholic.

2. How does "Sally" come to be a part of the Lincoln family?

In December of 1816, the family moved to Indiana, where slavery had just been outlawed. They lived in a log cabin, and the following summer Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness. Thomas Lincoln's household was floundering, so he went back to Kentucky to bring home a new wife, Sarah Bush Johnston, or "Sally."

3. What was Lincoln's first job? How might this have affected his opinion on slavery?

Thomas became a trustee of the Pigeon Creek Baptist Church, where he got Abraham a job as a sexton. The preacher was anti-slavery, and this surely affected Lincoln's opinions on slavery later in his life.

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