Family legend had it that we were connected to both Jefferson Davis and Mary Todd Lincoln through my maternal grandmother. I’ve never found any proof of either connections. Family legend also said that we were connected to William Ewart Gladstone, a Prime Minister of England. I have substantiated that, though the connection is one or two steps more distant than was suggested. I found an unexpected connect as I researched information for my book about Horton Howard. At the time of the Cholera Epidemic of 1833, the Howards had a young man boarding with them, Edwin McMasters Stanton. It occurred to me that he might be a relative as Horton’s mother was a Stanton. The man who later became Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War was indeed, related. Horton and Edwin are half-second cousins.