Hello and Welcome to R Day!
Name:
Robert Thompson
Vital Information:
Born 29 August 1860 in Lancashire, England. Died 28 February 1932 in Vermont, USA.
Relation to Me:
Robert is my paternal 2x great grandpa.
Tidbits/Characteristics/Commonalities:
As a nod to the importance of documenting oral history, what I am going to share here today is entirely from the eight-page handwritten document my great grandma Gertrude wrote sometime in the late 1970’s.
Page two of Gerturde’s writing brings us to a few details about her father:
Robert, my father, worked for a newspaper all his life. He did about everything there was to do in a newspaper office at one time or another. Several of his inventions were in use for years at the type-setting machine.
While I have not yet learned about any of Robert’s inventions, I hope there might be documentation of them somewhere.
As mentioned in my previous post, Mary Jane Barton’s marriage to Robert Thompson happened in Quebec in 1895, after which they immigrated to the United States.
Father and Mother moved to Manchester, N.H. around 1890, where Father worked at the Manchester Union (newspaper). I was brought up on “printer’s ink”! His clothes, no matter how clean, always kept a faint inky odor!
I was born in 1895, and we stayed in Manchester till 1904, when Father changed newspapers, first for about a year, to Geneva, N.H. then to Rochester, N.Y.
Father dropped dead on a Sunday afternoon while visiting friends – March 1932.
Gertrude really had a way with words, didn’t she 😉 I do believe that she truly approached this document with the facts in mind and wanted to convey as much as possible. I find this both comforting and a bit… intense. Again, as I said in my post about her, I so would like to sit across the table with her and chat for a bit.
In Your Research…
Have any of your ancestors handwritten any of your family history? Have you found a simple note outlining previous generations? Or maybe a brief history of a few kin?
Housekeeping
My theme for the 2025 A to Z Challenge is Kin! The first names of direct lineage kin, to be more specific.
I’m spending the majority of the month focusing on the first names of many of my direct lineage kin. I’ll include their full names, any vital information I’ve found in my research, their relation to me, any fun tidbits/characteristics/experiences, and any commonalities I may have gleaned between myself and them.
In a couple of cases, where I have not identified an ancestor whose first name starts with a particular letter, I will choose a unique middle name, a direct line surname, and/or ancestral lands/places of significance.
Pop over here to read my full theme reveal: A to Z 2025 Challenge Theme Reveal: Kin
Pop over here to visit our host and see what they’re up to throughout this year’s challenge: A to Z Challenge
If you’re visiting from the A to Z Challenge please leave a comment so I can visit you, too! If your comment bio doesn’t link back to your site, please feel free to add the link to your most recent post to the comment field so I can be sure to find you.
Thanks for being here! See you again soon!
Onward,
Melissa
I love the descriptions — especially the inky odor of the clothing, not matter how clean. That’s a detail that could so easily be lost to history.
I completely agree! My own dad is a woodworker, and the smell of sawdust feels like home to me. It’s these little details I want to continue to document for future generations.
I’m not sure if I commented on this yet through your A-to-Z posts, but I love that you have so much knowledge about your ancestry. I’m jealous in the best possible way.
Thank you for this! It’s been a long time in the making, but the last six years have been fast and furious! It’s been fun to see, through this challenge, where I’m lacking information or where new questions have popped up! And it’s felt very validating that I’ve discovered and been able to document so much. All I can hope to do is leave our family history in better shape for the generations yet to come.
The “I so would like to sit across the table with her and chat for a bit” sounds a bit different today than when you wrote it last time. Like, you might be a bit concerned today (as opposed to curious).
Ah, how interesting. I think I’m just super curious about who she was and how she walked through the world. I feel like maybe she was quite straightforward, a concrete-sequential type (kinda like me) and I’d just love to know for sure. If only I could fold time 😉