[muawiyah]

More than likely Abe's mother (not his step-mother), with whom he could barely communicate, came from Central New York and not the Mid-South as theorized by Carl Sandberg and others.

Why I say that is because ALL the neighbors in Southern Indiana did come from Central New York. They spoke one of 35 different Dutch dialects found in America at the time, and a melange of Scandinavian local dialects.

Abe's mother probably wasn't considered a white woman, but she wasn't considered a black woman either ~ her "minority" status would drive from her Scandinavian forebears from the far North who, at that time, simply weren't considered "white people".

[Mila]

I think that I can see a resemblance to her famous son, but not much to the actor to whom she is supposedly also related.

Nancy Hanks Lincoln