After failing in my initial attempt to find common ancestors with Abraham Lincoln, I have now found two entirely unrelated pairs. The closer pair, Abraham Jones and Sarah Whitman go back to Hingham Massachusetts in the 1600s. Scroll down for the other pair.
As a side note, Abraham Jones seems to be the first Abraham to appear in the Lincoln family tree.
Another near miss, there. Daniel Tower descends from the Hingham Towers. While Daniel isn't a direct ancestor of Abe, some of his ancestors are also in the Butler tree.
Mary Copeland Is the great grandaughter of John and Priscilla Alden. Thus, the Lincoln connection ties into the Mayflower connection. It was seeing the Ephraim Jones name in the Lincoln family tree that got me looking for this connection.
Dad
While we are on the subject of US Presidents, I'll note that the Adams Family of Massachusetts is also interesting. Mary Adams' father, Joseph Adams Junior, is the grandfather of John Adams, and great grandfather of John Quincy Adams. Still, you have to go back to Ruth Alden, daughter of John and Priscilla, to find a common ancestor linking the Butlers to John and John Quincy Adams.
Captain John Adams is the grandfather of Samuel Adams, the Boston rabble rouser.
Joseph Adams Jr., simply by having three wives, confuses the chart to the right a bit. To clarify, Mary Adams is the daughter of Mary Chapin, while Deacon John Adams is the son of Hannah Bass.
Ephraim Jones also has three wives, as shown in the outer Lincoln centered diagram. If one visits the Mayflower page, you cans see a line of descent from John and Pricilla Alden to Mary Copeland, the wife of Ephraim Jones Jr., but this doesn't show up on either the Adams or Lincoln charts on this page.
This reflects how few white settlers were on the South Shore this early. There are so many connections linking the various families that any given chart showing one set of connections is apt to miss others.
Sources
Ancestry of Abraham Lincoln from Genealogy.com Click "Instantly view Abraham Lincoln's family tree" for a solid overview. Key portions of said family tree are to the right. This source is helpful in tracing the Lincoln family back to England, thus clearing up some confusion that can be found in A History of Hingham, below.
A History of Hingham is a solid though highly local source for the colonial era when Lincoln and Butler ancestors were both in the Hingham Massachusetts area.
Genealogies of Families of Braintree, Quincy, Weymouth, Randolph, Holbrook, Mass. & Others covers much of the South Shore. From rootsweb.ancestry.com
FamousKin.com Ancestors of Abraham Lincoln goes back 32 generations from Abraham.
Tudorplace.com covers the Butler family of Olde England, among many other lines of the English nobility.
On hearing that Lincoln has a descent from the Kings of England, and knowing that the Butlers also have such a descent, it seemed inevitable that there should be a common ancestor somewhere back in the depths of time. This would be James Butler, the 3rd Earl of Ormond, and his wife Anne Welles..
Yes, this is the Eleanor of Aquitane.
Yes, this is John Lackland, signer of the Magna Carta and brother of Richard the Lionheart.
Thomas Townsend and his wife Mary Newgate are ancestors of the Modern Butlers, but not for many more generations.
The link between Tyringham Norwood and his son Captain John Norwood is not entirely confirmed, but Captain John Norwood is an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln.
In light purple, and continuing up and to the left, there are 11 generations of Butlers. As usual when you see a extended male line this far back in history, this is a noble line.
I would like to think that Henry Maitland Butler, the furthest back we have been able to trace in the Modern Butler Line, might descend from one of these noble Butlers, but we have not been able to identify Henry Maitland's parents.
Still, Abe Lincoln seems to descend from the beginning of the noble Butler line.
To the Modern Butlers
To Abraham Lincoln
This second Mordecai Lincoln had a brother Abraham Lincoln born in 1688.
This Abraham Lincoln is the President's grandfather. It seems the name Abraham shows up every other generation.