Genealogical research often turns up more than you really want to know. I got a rude reminder of this truism before the Christmas holidays, when a genealogist working in Cobourg, Ontario discovered that my earliest North American ancestor, William Thompson (1806-1849), assaulted a tailor, didn’t pay the fine, and spent time in the lock-up. The […]
Archives for January 2013
Debate Rages Over Which William Thompson Was Actually the Man
Was William Thompson da man? Or was it William Boyce Thompson? A dissident family faction weighs in.
The Inside Story of the Cumberland-Ely Deal: How William Boyce Thompson Outflanked the Guggenheims
I was recently sitting comfortably in a reading room of the Library of Congress, going through some papers left behind by Hermann Hagedorn, William Boyce Thompson’s biographer. I was minding my own business, trying to speed-read interviews related to the Magnate’s acquisition of a mining venture in Ely, Nevada, dreaming of my next cup of […]