Question:
David Thompson was born in Westminster, Middlesex, to recent Welsh migrants David and Ann Thompson. When Thompson was two, his father died. Due to the financial hardship with his mother without resources, Thompson and his older brother were placed in the Grey Coat Hospital, a school for the disadvantaged of Westminster. Thompson graduated to the Grey Coat mathematical school, where he was introduced to basic navigation skills.
Upon his arrival back in Montreal, Thompson retired with a generous pension from the North West Company. He settled in nearby Terrebonne and worked on completing his great map, a summary of his lifetime of exploring and surveying the interior of North America. The map covered the wide area stretching from Lake Superior to the Pacific, and was given by Thompson to the North West Company. Thompson's 1814 map, his greatest achievement, was so accurate that 100 years later it was still the basis for many of the maps issued by the Canadian government. It now resides in the Archives of Ontario.  In 1815, Thompson moved his family to Williamstown, Upper Canada, and a few years later was employed to survey the newly established borders with the United States from Lake of the Woods to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, established by Treaty of Ghent after the War of 1812. In 1843 Thompson completed his atlas of the region from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean.  Afterwards, Thompson returned to a life as a land owner, but soon financial misfortune would ruin him. By 1831 he was so deeply in debt he was forced to take up a position as a surveyor for the British American Land Company to provide for his family. His luck continued to worsen and he was forced to move in with his daughter and son-in-law in 1845. He began work on a manuscript chronicling his life exploring the continent, but this project was left unfinished when his sight failed him completely in 1851.
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how long did he live there?

Answer:
he was forced to move in with his daughter and son-in-law in 1845.


Question:
Mandaeism or Mandaeanism (Arabic: mndy'y@ Manda'iyah) is a gnostic religion with a strongly dualistic worldview. Its adherents, the Mandaeans, revere Adam, Abel, Seth, Enos, Noah, Shem, Aram, and especially John the Baptist. The Aramaic manda means "knowledge", as does Greek gnosis. According to most scholars, Mandaeaism originated sometime in the first three centuries AD, in Mesopotamia.
There is a strict division between Mandaean laity and the priests. According to E.S. Drower (The Secret Adam, p. ix):  [T]hose amongst the community who possess secret knowledge are called Nasuraiia--Nasoreans (or, if the emphatic <s> is written as <z>, Nazorenes). At the same time the ignorant or semi-ignorant laity are called 'Mandaeans', Mandaiia--'gnostics.' When a man becomes a priest he leaves 'Mandaeanism' and enters tarmiduta, 'priesthood.' Even then he has not attained to true enlightenment, for this, called 'Nasiruta', is reserved for a very few. Those possessed of its secrets may call themselves Nasoreans, and 'Nasorean' today indicates not only one who observes strictly all rules of ritual purity, but one who understands the secret doctrine.  There are three grades of priesthood in Mandaeism: the tarmidia "disciples" (Neo-Mandaic tarmidana), the ganzibria "treasurers" (from Old Persian ganza-bara "id.," Neo-Mandaic ganzebrana) and the risamma "leader of the people." This last office, the highest level of the Mandaean priesthood, has lain vacant for many years. At the moment, the highest office currently occupied is that of the ganzebra, a title which appears first in a religious context in the Aramaic ritual texts from Persepolis (c. 3rd century BCE) and which may be related to the kamnaskires (Elamite <qa-ap-nu-is-ki-ra> kapnuskir "treasurer"), title of the rulers of Elymais (modern Khuzestan) during the Hellenistic age. Traditionally, any ganzebra who baptizes seven or more ganzebrana may qualify for the office of risamma, though the Mandaean community has yet to rally as a whole behind any single candidate.  The contemporary priesthood can trace its immediate origins to the first half of the 19th century. In 1831, an outbreak of cholera devastated the region and eliminated most if not all of the Mandaean religious authorities. Two of the surviving acolytes (sgandia), Yahia Bihram and Ram Zihrun, reestablished the priesthood on the basis of their own training and the texts that were available to them.  In 2009, there were two dozen Mandaean priests in the world, according to the Associated Press.
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Is there any other interesting information regarding this topic?

Answer:
The contemporary priesthood can trace its immediate origins to the first half of the 19th century.


Question:
Gifford was born in Santa Monica, California, the son of Lola Mae (nee Hawkins) and Weldon Gifford, an oil driller. He graduated from Bakersfield High School. Following Gifford's death in 2015, his wife Kathie Lee Gifford said that her late husband grew up in a poverty-stricken home and that he and his family sometimes ate dog food. She said they lived in 29 places even before Gifford attended high school because his father could not find work during the Depression.
Gifford married his college sweetheart, USC's homecoming queen Maxine Avis Ewart, on January 13, 1952, after she became pregnant while they were students at USC. They had three children, Jeff (b. 1952), Kyle and Victoria, and five grandchildren. Victoria married Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy. Gifford was then married to fitness trainer Astrid Lindley from 1978 to 1986. The first two marriages ended in divorce. Gifford married television presenter and singer Kathie Lee Johnson, who was 23 years his junior, on October 18, 1986. The couple settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, with their son, Cody Newton Gifford, and daughter, Cassidy Erin Gifford. Gifford and his third wife Kathie Lee both shared the same birthday, which was August 16. The couple co-hosted ABC's coverage of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.  Gifford had an older sister and younger brother, Winona and Waine.  In 1997, the tabloid magazine Globe arranged to have Gifford secretly videotaped being seduced by former flight attendant Suzen Johnson in a New York City hotel room. They published photos and stories. ESPN reported that the tabloid paid Johnson $75,000 to lure Gifford to the room, while The Atlantic said it was $125,000. National Enquirer Editor Steve Coz observed, "There's a difference between reporting the news and creating the news ... [w]ithout The Globe, there would be no story here. I'm in the tabloid industry, and this is way over the top. It's downright cruel."  According to the former lawyer of Johnny Carson, Henry Bushkin, Gifford had an affair with Carson's second wife Joanne in 1970.
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what else happened in his personal life?

Answer:
Gifford had an older sister and younger brother, Winona and Waine.