I welcome you with open arms to Treasured Roots Blog! Feel free to post comments and information about our related families, even if your family name is not mentioned above, but is related to any one of these mentioned, please feel free to share your family's history with us here.It is my desire to preserve the heritage of our ancestors but it takes a combined effort--all of us working together to accomplish this. I know that you have wonderful family stories and pictures that we all would love to hear and see--and this blog was created for you to be able to share those treasured memories!
I am stepping out on foreign ground with this new blog spot, but I have always liked to try new adventures! Could this be a trait I inherited from my Great Grandfather, William Wayne Thompson(pictured above)? Possibly! From all verbal accounts he was a man that was prone to step out and take chances...moving his young family from Alabama to Northeast Texas some time between 1898-1901. When the land proved to not meet his standard of excellence, he then decided to make another move. So he loaded up all his worldly possessions and family(shortly after WW1) onto a train and made his way to south Texas, settling in LaPryor where he remained until his passing in 1933. Adventurous?--I would say so! A true pioneer in every sense of the word!
On May 23, 2009 the descendants of William Wayne Thompson gathered near Kendalia, TX for the Thompson Family Reunion. Many thanks go to Larry & Sidney Mae for allowing us the privilege of gathering together in their lovely home again for this wonderful event. We were rather small in number this year with only 46 who actually signed in at the registration table (I think there were some that got so excited greeting each other they failed to sign-in).
After lunch I gave a brief genealogy update on some information that I had discovered on Alexander W. & Laura Thompson, William Wayne's parents. It seems by all accounts that great grandfather, W.W. spoke little, if any, of his early life in Alabama and Georgia. The information I had uncovered was from 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880 (Alabama & Georgia)census records and sending out queries on several genealogy websites, which lead to correspondence with some people that were a great help to me in my search.
Jewel Thompson (my grandfather), W.W.'s youngest son, agreed to be interviewed on two separate occasions in the late 1970's. Jewel's youngest son, Frank, wrote down every thing Papa could remember about his family history. Jewel recalled that he had been told that his grandfather(name unknown to Jewel) had been a Doctor in the Civil war. It was this small piece of oral history and acquiring a copy of what I call--"The Big Thompson Book" that sparked my curiosity and set me on a hunt for my great, great grandparents.
I will share more of my search in future blogs.
