Levi Thompson 1900?

Every time I've tried to pin a death date on Levi Thompson I've been wrong. Now I've listed his death as before 1900, but that's just a guess. I have no idea when he died. I do have these two clues though.

Levi Thompson's pension case is dropped in 1902. In the past I attributed that to the slow progress of government machinery in handling his case. Since he didn't appear in the 1880 census with the family, I imagined that he was probably dead for 20 or more years by the time they got around to closing his case. Then I found him in 1890 in Ohio.

The second clue is Rosa Thompson's 1900 census record.  She is living with Rena Thompson Tyler and is listed as Widowed. Usually that means what it means, but I've been told that it could mean that she is divorced.

So trying to keep an open mind, I wondered what if the government wasn't really that slow and he actually died sometime after 1900. Could he be living somewhere in Ohio?

So I did a cursory search for Levi Thompson in Ohio born around 1835 and found one good candidate that I couldn't find in earlier census records from the area.  There are a few Levi Thompsons around in Ohio but they seem to be pretty tied down to their areas.

I can't say it's him, because I don't know, but I found a record of a Levi Thompson living further east in Ohio about a hundred miles from Tama/Hopewell with a woman named Margaret. This Levi is in his 65 or so. He has no children with him. It says that Margaret has 6 children, but they don't appear in the census so I assume they are 6 adult children. Margaret is born in 1844 which makes her a 10 years younger than Levi. I didn't find the couple together in 1910, which leads me to believe that Levi Thompson husband of Margaret died or split from her somewhere between 1900 and 1910.

It's unfortunate that the census doesn't list the number of children a man has, although in this case it would also be 6 so it may not be helpful.

So now I have a few more questions. Did Levi Thompson RUNNOFT?

Would Levi Thompson leave his family and move east to begin a new life. What evidence could support that?

Well, oddly, even though this information was eluded to in the order process from the national archive, his pension request has no information about his wife and children.

He appears in Ohio in 1890 for unknown reasons. I can't account for him for about 18 years before 1890 (since his last child is born in 1872, I imagine he was there until nearly that time) or after that time.

His daughter's husband John Silcott, disappears around 1880 and shows up in Utah. From experience I know that once one person breaks their relationship, it becomes easier for others to follow suit. Maybe 1880 was a really mobile year for Levi and the census missed him altogether?

Later Thompsons seem to have a hard time settling down. Levi's grandchildren through Albert (who dies before his last child is born) are often missing from their families lives, married to several people at the same time or not married at all and leave a wake of scarred children (my grandparent's generation) behind them.

Families are complicated and hard to maintain. Could it be the case that this family is just broken and now I'm scrambling to find the pieces?

Silcott Puzzle

Along with the disappearance of Levi Thompson in 1880 is the disappearance of Emily Thompson Silcott's husband. As I've mentioned before, I believe I have Emily/Emma Silcott with daughter Nina and husband John A. Silcott in Muncie Indiana in 1880 (when Nina is 1 year old). I also have Emily Silcott living in Alexandria  with mom Rosa in 1880 census records. So what happened to these people?

Over the past couple of weeks I've tried to piece things together with the Silcotts thinking it could help me find Levi. It's possible that father and son in law went on some wild business venture looking for a better life.

In searching through Ancestry.com though I think I've found the path that John Silcott was on. It looks to me like he left the young family in 1880 and headed west eventually residing in Utah in 1900 and then Colorado in 1920 and 1930. He is listed as divorced. In the end I see him listed with a woman and child in the Census, both the woman and child have different surnames form Silcott. The child is listed as his child.

Unfortunately I lose Emily after that. I'm not sure if she gets remarried or takes on the Thompson name again.

Thompson Photo 1927

I received a family photo from my new cousin from Indiana. It's loaded with good stuff. It contains my grandfather and great grandfather as well as Levi Thompson's oldest son James (b. 1857).  This picture is lower resolution than the scan I was sent and of course has been marred by the names I've put on it.

• Fred Fenimore is either the husband or son of Mary (Thompson) Fenimore in the front. From the look of him I'd say son. 
• Francis Thompson is Albert Thompson's son. Albert died in 1909 from heart failure.
• Charles Sturm is the husband of Marjory (Thompson) Sturm in front.
• Ray Thompson (with the dark look about him) is my great grandfather and son of Albert.
• Jim Thompson who looks like the eagle from the muppet show, is Levi Thompson's first son, brother of Albert.
• Not sure about Dick Karn
• Nor sure about Everett Cunningham
• Mollie Swindell is Mary O. (Hughes) Swindell married to Norris Swindell.
• Mae Swindell is the daughter of Mollie Swindell.
• Onda is Cuba Thompson's first wife.
• Mike Clifford is Mattie (Thompson) Clifford's husband.
• Cuba (Fuzz or Fuzzie) Thompson is a son of Albert Thompson.
• Paul McCann is the second husband of Eva (Thompson) Hetzel.
• Not sure of Bernice Cunningham.
• Not sure of Nellie Little.
• Mary Hardcastle is the wife of Francis Pearl Thompson above.
• Mattie (Thompson) Clifford is Levi Thompson's daughter (b. 1872).
• Mary (Thompson) Fenimore is Levi's oldest daughter (b. 1856).
• Ida Williamson is the wife of Albert Thompson (b. 1874).
• Ethyl Clifford is Mike Clifford and Mattie Thompson's daughter.
• unsure of Laura McPherson.
• Marjory/Marjorie (Thompson) Sturm is Albert's daughter married to Charles Sturm.
• Eva (Thompson) McCann is the wife of Paul McCann. Her first marriage was to Bernard Hetzel.
• the little unknown child is listed as Bob Fuller Wife. 
• Rosemary Thompson is the aunt of my new found cousin in Indiana.
• Charles Paul Thompson is my grandfather son of Ray Thompson.

These are the names as best as can be remembered by my cousin's dad. In the notes it says that we are related to the Swindells in some way. I haven't found it yet but I've only got the Swindell tree back so far. I had hoped to tie them into the Thompsons within a couple of generations but no such luck. It does appear that they may have been important to the family as I see Swindell names on many of the marriage certificates for Albert's children.

Message in a Bottle

I was contacted in January by someone who found one of my postings out on the Thompson genealogy site. Ironically, he contacted me about the time I got my package from the MCHS containing all that information and when I had my Ancestry.com account active. So things all came together at once.

All my droppings around the internet have paid off with a contact from the home team. This person is still in the Alexandria area and grew up there. He's the same age as my Dad and at the same level in the family tree.

My tree branch runs like this:

Levi -> Albert -> Ray ->Charles -> my Dad -> Me.

His branch runs like this

Levi -> Albert ->Francis -> Richard -> Him.

So his father and my grandfather are first cousins. I've learned so much about the family in a few short weeks that my head feels like it's going to pop. I've also been able to share some of the things I learned. Unfortunately he and I are stuck at the same place. Levi Thompson 1834 Indiana or Pennsylvania.

It's been awesome to get pictures from the Thompson family (some of which I need to post here) and insight into their lives from his and his father's perspective.

In this way one of my big goals has been met. I have a past and a family and I'm on the right track. My Thompson world is no longer the small world of the Thompsons I know and grew up with, now there are many more Thompsons to meet.

Rosa, Levi, Fire and a Parking Lot

I could never find evidence of Rosa and Levi's marriage. I haven't been able to find grave sites or death certificate records for either person. To me they appear to be people that grow out of the ground in 1860 with children in tow, living with another family that I cannot tie them to through any other records (the Broderick/Davis household). Then Levi disappears, now after 1890 and Rosa is gone by 1910.

So I decided that the search function at Ancestry was not going to be of much use to me. All I can find are records of John L Thompson and Rosanna Steele and I've been able to prove that Levi and Rosanna/Rosa Thompson are not those people. So I began in 1850 just going page by page through the census in VanBuren, Madison, Indiana (where Levi and Rosanna live in 1860) to see what is there. That's when I found Rose A. Blades born in 1837 in Indiana, just like Rosa and her father is from Maryland just like Rosa says in 1880.

Then days later, I got a package from the Madison County Historical Society with several records from the county health department and news papers for Albert Thompson and there on the death record are the names of Albert's parents. Levi Thompson born in Indiana and Rosa Blode also born in Indiana. Blode is close enough to Blades to me to be a misspelling or misread of handwriting from the original certificate. The Blades family is a founding family in Van Buren and Rosa's father James Blades is one of the first men in the area.

Why then can't I find marriage records for Levi and Rosa if she is from a core family? The package states that many records were lost to fire in the courthouse around 1880. I imagine that is why so much is lost to me.

Madison county has a very nice cemetery web site with gravesite listings. I began to hunt through those for Levi and Rosa Thompson, but I couldn't find them. I did find a listing and a picture for James Blades headstone, but nothing for Levi and Rosa.

My search was not totally without merit though because I discovered that there was an Alexandria Cemetery which I'd never heard about before. My heart sank though when I pulled up the page for the cemetery as it is a paved parking lot with a single marker for unknown souls.

Since I have no idea when it was paved and destroyed, I still have some hope that Levi and Rosa are buried elsewhere. That brings me back to a cemetery I can find no records for.

In my last post, I have Levi living in Tamah, Mercer, Ohio. There is a union cemetery there with only one record online but multiple headstones in a picture. This may be a reason to make a trip to Indiana and Ohio. Perhaps I will find them there.

Levi Thompson Alive in 1890

Picked up my ancestry.com account again as a Christmas gift and found an unexpected record for Levi Thompson in 1890. On ancestry the 1890 records are pretty dry and unorganized, but oddly that's where I found him. Levi Thompson shows up in 1860 with his family and disappears after the 1870 census. I assumed he had died before 1880 given the injuries he had.

I found him in a veterans schedule in Hopewell Ohio. It doesn't give much information, but it does say he has a disability of "stiff ankle" and that he has a post box in Tamah Ohio which is between Rockford, Mendon and Celine in Mercer County Ohio. As you can see on the map it's not that far from Alexandria Indiana across the state line.

I'm not sure what he's doing in Ohio at this time. His family is still in Alexandria in 1880, although he does not appear to be there. I haven't found him in Ohio in 1880 yet either. In 1880 Rosa Thompson claims she is married. In 1900 she claims widowed. This makes more sense now than it did when I thought he died in the 1870s.

This raises a lot of questions. What is he doing there,  does he have ties to the area? Is that where he died? There is a union cemetary in Tamah Ohio, but find-a-grave only lists one gravesite. Luckilly they also have a picture of the graveyard and you can see that there are multiple headstones.  Could that be the final resting place for Levi?

As another point of interest, Emily Thompson Silcott's husband is also gone in the 1880 census and Emily is listed living with her mom in Alexandria. Oddly she is also listed in 1880 in Muncie Indiana with her daughter Nina and husband. That tells me that there was some turmoil in 1880, although I don't know what it is.