Wednesday, February 17, 2010

No, we were not named for President Lincoln.


Lincoln's Sparrow
Originally uploaded by Laura Erickson
John James Audubon named us for a young man, Thomas Lincoln, of Dennysville, Maine. Lincoln shot and killed one of my ancestors on a trip with Audubon to Nova Scotia in 1834, and Audubon named it "Tom's Finch" in his honor. Ha. That would be like "honoring" any descendants of Abraham Lincoln by calling them "John Wilkes Booth's people."

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