abstract:The Marquisal, Countal and Baronial House of Nicolay (de Nicolaÿ/Nicolaï, von Nicolay/Nicolai) - refer to Nobility particle) is a European noble family of the Ancien Régime with its roots in the south of France at the early part of the 14th Century. There is however, evidence to suggest that its origins stretch further back to the growth of the city state of Florence at the beginning of the Florentine Renaissance.
Nicolay, a private secretary to Lincoln and co-author with John Hay of a formidable ten-volume Lincoln biography, called it a bald, unblushing forgery.