When Did Harold Thompson Come To Edmonton?

Images courtesy of archive.org

The other day, I saw a photo of Fort Edmonton on the Historic Edmonton Facebook page. It reminded me of something my grandfather, Harold Alfred Thompson, used to say: that he lived in the Fort when he first arrived in Edmonton.

So I wondered how close I could get to the date that he arrived in Edmonton. My first Google search asked when Fort Edmonton was dismantled, and I found it was in October 1915. I also remembered my grandfather saying it was near the Alberta Legislative Building (as shown in the photo). As I typed this, I had an epiphany that I will tell you about in a minute.

Harold Alfred Thompson was born on March 2, 1907, in Toronto, Ontario. Now I’ve narrowed the timeframe for when Harold arrived in Edmonton to sometime between March 2, 1907, and October 1915. But can I get closer?

Harold is Lily Shannon’s son, but not John Robert Thompson’s. Lily and John had two sons together: Roy, born November 20, 1909, in Toronto, and another son, Norman, born May 5, 1911, in Edmonton.

So now I’ve narrowed Harold’s arrival in Edmonton to between November 20, 1909, and May 5, 1911. But can I get even closer?

The 1911 Canada Census field enumerations started on June 11, 1911, which doesn’t help narrow the timeframe, but it does tell me that John and Lily lived at 30 River Street in Edmonton at the time of the census.

1911 Canada Census

(Take my word for it that it says 30 River Street )

With that address, I can look at the Henderson Directories for Edmonton, which are available at the Internet Archive. I checked the 1909 and 1910 directories and found the pages listing the people who live on each street.

City directories are such a valuable resource, especially when you are looking for information between the census years.

In 1909, 30 River Street was vacant, but in 1910, John Thompson lived there. Because the information was gathered before publication, John may have lived there in the fall of 1909, assuming a 3-6 month window before publication.

With further review of the Henderson Directory, you can read the preface page below.

Because the preface is dated August 1910, and the publisher refers to the “recent canvass of the city”, John Thompson was clearly at 30 River Street by the time that canvass was completed.

If we use the common estimate that the canvass occurred roughly 3–6 months before publication, that would place the canvassing period approximately between:

• February 1910 or
• May 1910

So Harold’s arrival window is now:

after Roy’s birth in November 1909, but probably before May 1910 — and possibly as early as February 1910.

That takes me from an original 576-day window down to approximately:

• November 1909 to May 1910: about 181 days
• If the canvass was on the earlier side, November 1909 to February 1910: potentially only about 90 days

I could phrase my conclusion as:

Based on Roy Thompson’s birth in Toronto in November 1909 and John Thompson’s appearance at 30 River Street in Henderson’s 1910 Edmonton directory, whose preface is dated August 1910 and refers to a recent canvass, the Thompson family likely arrived in Edmonton between late November 1909 and spring 1910.

So between late November 1909 and the spring of 1910, the family likely lived in Fort Edmonton.

Now, for my “epiphany,” as I was starting this article, I recalled that Fort Edmonton was located near the Alberta Legislative Building, as shown in the photo above. When I wrote that, I remembered that John Robert Thompson worked at the Alberta Legislative Building for many years, so perhaps when he arrived in Edmonton and lived at the Fort, he applied for work there.

What began as a simple family story—that my grandfather lived at Fort Edmonton when he first arrived in the city—has become a more focused research project. I still don’t know the exact day the Thompson family reached Edmonton, but I’ve narrowed their arrival from years to months, using births, census records, and city directories.

That is one of the things I love most about genealogy: sometimes the answer isn’t sitting in a single record waiting to be found. Sometimes we have to build it, clue by clue, until the pieces begin to fit.