The Wrong Thompson Family

I hate to mention this, but it's better to put all the weird theories out there I suppose. I've mentioned the Ritchie family in the last post. They are part of a group of families in Kentucky that I think might be related to my Williamson family and therefore I have one theory that although I do not seem to be descended from Albert Thompson, we may be related to his wife Ida Williamson (holding my grandfather in the 1928 photo). That Theory rests on Bishop Thompson being her son, but not necessarily Albert's son. That is the going theory that I need to test by getting one of my Indiana Thompsons run through 23 and me.

This theory, the "wrong Thompson family" theory, has to do with a striking coincidence. It's really easy to add too much meaning to such a coincidence but. There is another Thompson family that exists in Anderson Indiana at the same time that Levi is there and at one point I thought they may have been Levi's family. It's the family of William A Thompson from Pittsylvania Va who married Mary Ellen Berger also from Pittsylvania Va. They moved to Madison county Indiana and had children (one of whom served with Levi in the Civil war).

They were of interest because of location and timing but also because they are English Thompsons rather than Irish or Scots Irish Thompsons. It turns out they were not from Pennsylvania and never passed through there. So I set them aside.

What brought them to my attention again was this Ritchie family. I have seen it before. William A Thompson's mom is Margaret Ritchie. Those Ritchies from Virginia are the same Ritchies that move to Kentucky to become part of the families of my dad's two genetic matches.

It could absolutely be a giant coincidence. I've been burned multiple times by these things so you have to take it with a really big grain of salt. Basically..at this point, I can show a definite relationship from two of my dad's genetic relatives to a Thompson family in Madison County IN...it's just the wrong Thompson family. Now..before I knew where my Thompsons were from, I would have killed for this match and assumed that we were related to these Thompsons somehow. Now I'm just not sure what to do with such an idea.

There are a lot of directions I could take, but all of them rely on having living Thompson men from William A Thompson's family to Y test as a start...and it really is a fluke. I am 99% likely to be totally wrong..so I almost hate to put it out into the world. It really could be a case of like people ending up in like places.