1.  Letter from Mrs. Fred R. Jueneman (223 East Oakland, Rapid City, SD) to Winnifred Ranford (10607 Pinyon Ave., Tujunga, CA) dated 11 June 1964, a photocopy of which was passed on from Winnie Ranford to my aunt, Betty Ann (Matthiesen) Cogliati, who passed it on to me.

My husband's ancestor was James Thompson who had a brother John Thompson, they came from Ireland to America prior to the Revolutionary War and settled near Philadelphia, Pa.  James served in the War and then moved to So. Carolina and on to Tenn. with his brother John.  From Tenn. they moved on to Christian Co. Ky...     I have a copy of an old letter written by James Frank Thompson [grandson of James, the immigrant]...  He does not give the names of the children of John Thompson brother of James, born in Ireland... correction- he gives Jeff Thompson, son of John (b. in Ireland) Thompson, who had a command and fought so bravely in the Confederate service...

For John THOMPSON (b. in Ireland ca. 1757) to have had a son fighting in the Civil War — over a century later! — is simply not credible.  The father of Brig. Gen. M. Jeff THOMPSON (1826-1874), the "Missouri Swamp Fox" of Civil War fame, was in fact Capt. Meriwether THOMPSON, of Culpeper Co., VA.  There is nothing in the records — and certainly nothing in their geography — to suggest a connection between these families.  So, even if the above John THOMPSON had a son, Jeff, he's not the Jeff THOMPSON of Civil War fame.