I have been on a quest to obtain the Thompson Journals complete library for over 15 years. Two of the original holders and writers have passed away, and there have only been paragraphs and pages of the journal used as source documentation for ancestors verification. But now I have obtained all 28 volumes that have been transcribed on Word documents.

“In the early part of the 20^th century, Josiah VanKirk Thompson of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, spent a considerable amount of time and money researching the genealogies of various early Pennsylvania settlers, most of whom were originally in the Cumberland Valley. His intent was to publish a book containing the ancestry and descendants of his Revolutionary War forbearers and he was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, and had several lines listed with that organization. Included in these genealogies are the descendants of Thomas Thompson, a son of John Thompson and Mary Wilson and the brother of John Thompson who married Susanna Laughlin. Among other lines recorded are Scroggs, Blain/Blean, Jack, Carruthers, and Laughlin. He also hired a professional genealogist, Gustavo Anjou, to assist in the search, primarily in obtaining the pre-American ancestry of the lines he maintained, i.e., the early history of his Carruthers line in Scotland. Anjou’s work has subsequently been found to be flawed and some researchers claim that he was a fraud.

Thompson was a wealthy coal entrepreneur and a major figure in Pennsylvania’s coal and coke boom of the late 19^th and early 20th centuries. He lived in a large mansion, once named Oak Hill (and now Mount Saint Macrina), and kept Albert Gallatin’s Friendship Hill as a summer home. As coal prices fell, his fortuned declined and he was eventually forced into bankruptcy. His wealth coupled with his interest in genealogy, gave him the time and resources necessary to compile these  notes.

Thompson travelled throughout Pennsylvania and the surrounding area, interviewing everyone he could find connected with the early settlers, and in the process generated what are today called “The J.V. Thompson Journals”.  These journals consist of 28 volumes, each about 600 pages in length, legal size, specially bound and all hand written. He began his extensive project in the late 1890’s and was still recording in the journals the day before he died in 1933. By that time, he was blind, penniless & estranged from his son. Much of the information in the last two volumes was dictated to his wife or step-daughters.

These journal have been filmed by the LDS church and are available in the Family History Library and to Family History Centers worldwide. The Notes are not easy to research. They are not indexed (there is a sort of very rough index) which can be seen on the old CD-ROM version of the catalog or on one of the films.

I have been fortunate enough to find the transcript of the full 28 volumes on Microsoft Word format.

I have been trying to find copies of the entire library through out the years, but they have only appeared is small references and scripted for providing a source documentation for an individual.

After 15 years of searching, I can now begin expanding and correcting ancestors information.

THE JACK FAMILY TREE CONSISTS OF OVER 15,000 INDIVIDUAL FAMILY MEMBERS, OVER 5,000 FAMILIES, AND OVER 4,000 SURNAMES.

 IT CONSISTS OF 40 GENERATIONS SPANNING OVER A THOUSAND YEARS.

 YOU ARE THE SUM OF ALL THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE YOU

AND YOU WILL BE THE TOTAL FOR ALL THOSE WHO COME AFTER YOU.