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Robert B. Thompson

English missionary

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ15455378
Source-derived summary

Robert Blashel Thompson (October 1, 1811 – August 27, 1841) was an English-American associate of Joseph Smith Jr., a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement, a Danite, and an official historian of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Early life

Thompson was born in Great Driffield, England, on October 1, 1811. He joined the Methodists at an early age and participated in preaching in Yorkshire. In 1834, Thompson emigrated to Upper Canada and settled in Toronto. In May 1836, he was baptized a member of the Church of the Latter-day Saints by Parley P. Pratt. On July 22, 1836, Thompson was ordained an elder in the church by John Taylor.

Life in the United States

Personal life

Thompson moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where the majority of Latter Day Saints were gathering, in May 1837. He married Mercy Rachel Fielding in Kirtland on June 4, 1837. Later that month, the couple traveled to Upper Canada as missionaries for the church. They returned to Kirtland in March 1838.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Robert B. Thompson” as english missionary. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Thompson and English.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1811, 1841, 1834, 1836—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1811-10-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Robert, Thompson and English providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Robert B. Thompson”, the useful work is to connect “english missionary” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15455378. VIAF identifies the subject as 18102208. The Library of Congress control number is no2019057123. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1811, 1841, 1834 and 1836.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert B. Thompson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.