Stop the digital press–this blogger recently obtained copies of genealogy reports commissioned by William Boyce Thompson that shed light on the family’s distant past. Unfortunately, researchers working for The Magnate ran into the same dead-ends that befuddle family researchers today. That said, The Thompson Reports include some exciting new information. H.H. Plate, Thompson’s secretary who in 1923 was sent on a fact-finding mission to […]
Thompson Line Seems to End at William Thompson, Sr.
Like most amateur genealogists, I have reached a maddening dead-end in the quest to trace my family roots. The end of the line is William Thompson, Sr., who appears to have lived most his life in Ontario, Canada, but was probably born in Scotland. Thompson’s very common name, which shows up often in Census counts, church […]
Annie Maria Boyce Thompson Lived a Hard Life
Only five of Annie Maria Boyce’s ten children lived to adulthood, and ill health forced her to spend summers in California. Like many Western pioneers, Annie Maria Boyce Thompson lived a hard life, though she was steadfast in her faith and greatly inspired her children. Born August 15, 1846, in Boone County, Missouri, Annie traveled with her mother and father, […]
A Twisted William Thompson Was Published in 1899
Who would have thought that William Thompson, the rugged frontiersman who was instrumental in the founding of Virginia City, Montana, was also a published author? Perhaps this explains the penchant of descendants toward things literary. Asked by the Anaconda Standard to reminisce about his first Christmas at Alder Gulch, a mining camp that included the town of Virginia City, Thompson relates in an avuncular […]