The earliest known ancestor, Thomas Thornton (b. 1755), was born in Donegal County in Ulster, Northern Ireland. He came to America in 1773 and settled first in Virginia. He lived in Delaware a part of the revolutionary period or at least enlisted with the troops of that state. He married 1782 Elizabeth Robertson, the only sister of General James Robertson, the founder of the City of Nashville, Tennessee. The young couple settled in Salisbury, North Carolina. Here his three children were born: Henry Presley in 1783; Benjamin; and only daughter, Margaret. Family migrated from North Carolina to Bourbon County, Kentucky in 1790, where Thomas Thornton died ca. 1840. This book is dedicated to the descendants of Henry Presley Thornton, the eldest son of Thomas Thornton, who migrated to Indiana.