Ancestry of Walter Mack & Alma (Ingram) Key
  Ancestry of Walter Mack & Alma (Ingram) Key




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HANKS





The Hanks Connection

I remember when I began researching the ancestry of my grandmother, Alma Ingram, daughter of Richard Ingram and Nancy Jane Hanks, my genealogist mentor offered this suggestion.

"You might be related to Abraham Lincoln, his mother was a Hanks"

As a result of this potential well-known connection, my research of Alma's ancestry proceeded quickly. Adin Baber has written several well researched and documented books on the Hanks that serve as the source of my Hanks ancestry.

Alma's grandfather was Fielding Hanks, son of William and Louisa (Hall) Hanks and grandson of Fielding and Lydia (Harper) Hanks. See the family gedcom for descendents and ancestors.

Fielding Hanks (Alma's grandfather) was born about 1832 in Kentucky. He married Sarah Francis Gilmore on May 20, 1858, in Montgomery County, Kentucky. They had 8 children. The children were: John W., Andrew Jackson, U. S. Grant, Nancy "Nannie" Jane, Elizabeth, Fielding, Olivia Leah, Francis Marion.

On both, the 1870 and 1880 federal census records, the family lived in Bath County, Kentucky. Fielding made his living as a farmer. Sarah died between 1878 and 1903. This particular branch of the Hanks family had lived in eastern Kentucky since the 1790's. However, by 1911, Fielding and several of his children had moved to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma.

What enticed this family to move from their homeland of 200 years to Indian lands? In 1893 the Dawes Commission was established to eliminate tribal ownership of land and distribute or allot the land to the individual members of each tribe. Therefore, a critical function of the Commission was the identification (enrollment) of all persons claiming to be members of the Five Civilized Tribes.

In the Hanks family, it was a tradition that Lydia Harper, wife of the elder Fielding, was a full blooded Choctaw Indian. Her parents were John and Mary Ann Harper. According to the tradition, John and Mary Ann were Choctaws and had been born in Mississippi. John and Mary Ann moved to eastern Kentucky sometime in the 1780's to Clark County and finally resided in Montgomery County. In 1830, the government reached an agreement (Treaty of Dancing Rabbit) with the Choctaw tribe in Mississippi providing for their removal to Oklahoma. If any of the Choctaws wished to stay in Mississippi, the federal government would grant them 160 acres of land and US citizenship.

Again, according to family tradition, John Harper went to Mississippi and attempted to register under the articles of the treaty to claim land, but was denied. He returned to Kentucky where he died in 1838 without ever registering as a Mississippi Choctaw Indian.

Due to the special provisions of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit, the Commission extended the enrollment process to people claiming to be descendants of Mississippi Choctaws.

Over 300 families who could trace their descent from John and Mary Harper applied for Choctaw citizenship between 1903 and 1905. Fielding and several of his children traveled to Muskogee, Indian Territory in 1903 to apply. They basically had no proof to offer that John Harper and Mary Ann were Choctaw other than the family traditions.

The commission denied their applications, but the family contested the rulings. Ultimately, Representative Langley, of Kentucky, proposed a bill in the House of Representatives in 1908, providing for the identification of the Hanks as Choctaw Tribal members. The House did not pass the bill.

Even though their dream of free land was never realized, Fielding and at least three of their children moved to Oklahoma, including Alma's parents, Richard and Nancy Jane (Hanks) Ingram.

Fielding died June 23, 1911 and is buried in Stringtown, Atoka County, Oklahoma.


Origin
England/Scotland/Wales

The surname was recorded in Lincolnshire where
they were seated as Lords of the Manor.

 


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Resources

Rootsweb's HANKS Resource Page
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