Virgil Lee Thompson 1920-1996
Thank you for stopping in at the NEWEST version of the Thompson Branch. Version 4.0. It’s a new look and feel for the site!!!
I built the first version of this site all the way back in the late 90’s. At first, it was just a project, something to keep me busy during my time off work due to several knee surgeries. But it grew over time into so much more.
In the early days, I built a page for each family member. That became a real task if I needed to do updates with several thousand pages in the database. I switched to a content management system (CMS) called Joomla and a plugin called Joaktree around 2006, which allowed me to just import my GEDCOM file and it did all the work. But the creator of Joaktree stopped development on his plugin a few years ago, leaving me stuck with an old (unsecured) version of Joomla.
I kept up with adding band-aids to the old site, but I hit a wall after passing 37,000 names. The site was sluggish and the old plugin took hours to import data. I’m now using two CMS’s called TNG and WordPress. All seems to be working great and handles the large amount of names very well.
My goal is to find, present and preserve our family heritage for future generations. I know I have many dead ends and a lot of missing data. As the centuries pass, wars, fires, and floods have made it near impossible to trace down some branches.
Some of the names are just guess work. But that’s how this goes for me. I make a guess and try to prove or disprove it. Where ever I make a guess, I try to explain it in the notes for that person.
The tree has grown so big, I needed to limit the amount of cousins I add as well. I do not go beyond 5th cousin anymore.
If you have information you would like to add, please let me know. This isn’t just my site. This site belongs to all of us!
If you would like to know about updates to the site, drop me a line and I will be happy to fill you in on any changes I make…
Thank you very much,
Michael A Thompson
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