Thompson One Name Study

Database Explained

The full Thompson One Name Study can be accessed from this site.

In its original desktop format (rather than internet based), the entry screen looked like this:

tonsdb2.jpg (77548 bytes)

Spot the "deliberate mistake" with this entry - the year is 1871 not 1817

When you view the internet based database, you will see the same fields, but laid out in a tabular form so as to get 10 records onto a page.

Now for an explanation of the fields:

Entry Date: The date of entry in the source document

Source: The source document e.g. Parish Register, Newspaper etc. or a Location (in the case of unpublished sources like Family Bibles)

County: County in the UK; in the USA, County within a State.

State: In the UK, England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland; In the USA, the State; in other countries, the equivalent (e.g. territory, province etc.)

Country: United Kingdom, Australia, United States of America

Ref Name: First names of the person to whom the record refers

Ref Surname: Surname of the person to whom the record refers - normally Thompson or Thomson or variations on these

Event Date: The date of the actual event (often the same as the date of entry, but not always)

Event: The event itself e.g. birth, baptism, banns, marriage, death, accident, Census etc.

Entry: The entire description of the event - it could also be something like a Memorial Inscription or a Census entry

Comments: Usually providing additional source information e.g. the person who obtained the information from the source, also cross references to other records.