{"id":77829,"date":"2023-02-10T06:50:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T12:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.familytreedna.com\/?p=77829"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:58:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:58:51","slug":"abraham-lincoln","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.familytreedna.com\/es\/abraham-lincoln\/","title":{"rendered":"How Much Do You Know About Abraham Lincoln?"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243;][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;334819&#8243;]By: Jeremy Balkin<\/p>\n<h2>My brother is honest to a fault.<\/h2>\n<p>He\u2019s always been. Today, it\u2019s a virtue, and I look up to him for it. As kids, it was probably the most annoying thing ever. Yes, it was fine whenever he forced himself to confess to whatever self perceived crime he committed. Whether it was telling Dad that he snuck candy into his room or telling Mom the candy he snuck into his room was hers to begin with. I got a little chuckle out of his self imposed candor. But I soon learned I could never co-conspire with him. Our deeds would always find their way back to us via him. As I grew into an adult and learned I was able to eat all the candy I wanted, I both appreciated my brother\u2019s honesty and reveled in the criminal underworld of buying Hershey\u2019s bars at Target.<\/p>\n<p>Honest Abe was my little brother\u2019s nickname. Well, it was one of them. The other ones either aren\u2019t relevant to this post or aren&#8217;t appropriate for the public. Of course, the nickname was taken from the 16th US president, Abraham Lincoln, and his well-known integrity. My brother even resembles Lincoln. Tall, skinny, with gruff facial hair; prone to wearing a bow tie if the occasion is fancy enough. Though he (and I) are not descendents of Lincoln, our family has always had a fondness for the president and have felt a connection to him.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=&#8221;77830&#8243; caption=&#8221;yes&#8221; media_lightbox=&#8221;yes&#8221; media_width_percent=&#8221;50&#8243; uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;120351&#8243;][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;184009&#8243;]<\/p>\n<h2>Today, it\u2019s easy to know if you descend from the 16th United States president.<\/h2>\n<p>Taking a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familytreedna.com\/products\/big-y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Big Y-700 test<\/a> with us (FamilyTreeDNA) will give you a refined Y-DNA haplogroup, and through the new <a href=\"https:\/\/discover.familytreedna.com\/y-dna\/R-BY56066\/notable\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Discover<\/a> tool, it will show in your results if Lincoln was one of your ancestors. There are even testers in our database who we know are descendants of President Lincoln. Within the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familytreedna.com\/groups\/lincoln\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lincoln DNA Project<\/a>, hosted by our site, several customers are confirmed as sharing a common ancestor with him.<\/p>\n<p>As Lincoln\u2019s birthday quickly approaches (which is 9 days apart from my brother\u2019s), I wanted to take a moment and reflect on not only the man himself but how we view historical figures. Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc from the television program <em>Friends<\/em> also share Lincoln\u2019s haplogroup and descend from a common ancestor. I was very tempted to instead make this post about how people have always said that I\u2019m totally a Chandler. But I soon realized that an entire article filled with <em>Friends<\/em> references didn\u2019t exactly fit the bill on the subjects of history, genealogy, and descendancy.<\/p>\n<p>We, collectively, need historical figures to look back on as examples. Lincoln was deeply flawed, too. It\u2019s nice to view him and others through rose-colored glasses. He certainly had a resume full of traits and accomplishments to admire. At the same time, he, just like Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc, had faults. He was still racist (Lincoln, not Matthew or Matt), and that is absolutely nothing to ignore. How much of that was a product of his time or not, and how valid the whole <em>product of one\u2019s time<\/em> is to begin with, is far above my pay grade. There are still serious issues involving President Lincoln.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=&#8221;77833&#8243; media_lightbox=&#8221;yes&#8221; media_width_percent=&#8221;50&#8243; uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;205958&#8243;][vc_column_text uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;174009&#8243;]<\/p>\n<h2>One\u2019s legacy is often carried down through generations as being defined by what they did.<\/h2>\n<p>Lincoln, for better or worse, did things to ultimately better the United States and the world. I still admire my brother for his similarities to Lincoln. Rather, I admire his similarities to how we collectively perceive the president today. I think that people ascribe their own ideas about how they look at famous and historical figures through the lenses of their own life experiences. While I still think I\u2019m totally a Chandler, my brother will always be <em>Honest Abe<\/em>.[\/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=&#8221;77834&#8243; caption=&#8221;yes&#8221; media_lightbox=&#8221;yes&#8221; media_width_percent=&#8221;50&#8243; uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;864093&#8243;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/1&#8243;][vc_separator sep_color=&#8221;,Default&#8221;][uncode_author_profile user_id=&#8221;9&#8243; avatar=&#8221;custom&#8221; custom_avatar=&#8221;78549&#8243; avatar_size=&#8221;250&#8243; heading_semantic=&#8221;h3&#8243; text_size=&#8221;h3&#8243; display_button=&#8221;yes&#8221; button_content=&#8221;Read More From Jeremy&#8221; hover_fx=&#8221;full-colored&#8221; uncode_shortcode_id=&#8221;170800&#8243; button_color_type=&#8221;uncode-solid&#8221; button_color_solid=&#8221;#ff6900&#8243;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Explore this tribute to the 16th United States president in honor of his birthday this Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":77836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.2 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Much Do You Know About Abraham Lincoln? 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