C18th century occupations.
 

As I was bored this afternoon and a lot of Somerset and Gloucestershire images of parish records have been added to ancestry I thought I would spend my time trying to find occupations for as many of my precensus ancestors as I could. Not much luck with the women but my favourite for the men is Fly driver. I know a fly was some sort of cart but I can't help thinking of something like Cinderella's coach. I also have a druggist and dealer which sounds very dodgy and a couple of boys working as pages. Most of the ones I found were Yeomen which covers a multitude of sins in my case a family of property speculators.

One of my 19th century ancestors declares himself an ag lab on census. He was in fact a yeoman, owner of 4000 acres!

An 18th century ancestor was a reed maker and I imagined a musical connection whilst wondering how much call there was for oboe reeds in 18 th century rural Lancashire.Turned out he made the straight bits for weaving looms, called reeds!

OC

I found my late 17th / early 18th century ancestor described as a tobacconist on some records recently, and imagined that he ran a small shop (he was a merchant on other records, but that could also mean shop-keeper), but now I have found out he was a tobacco importer and trader.

One of my favourites is a family in Yorkshire where several generations worked as butchers and rustic furniture/summerhouse builders. What a weird combination!

I have a lot of musical string makers, sometimes harp or violin string makers in C19th London. Originally, I had this romantic notion that they'd brought this trade over from County Cork until I realised it related to them living in the shadows of Smithfields and then Islington Cattle Markets and that there's nothing romantic about the job at all.

It was only when I found the man also manufacturing sausage skins, and creating a nuisance, I began to realise my own romantic notions of the chap I was researching were way out of line.

Bless us eh:)

My 5x great grandfather's burial record states, Rowland Goodfellow was buried at Penrith on 7th May 1707 he was the Town Swineherd.

19thC, but had to post; OH's relation was urinal cleaner for the parish of St Pancras, Middlesex! Rather him than me!

Someone has to do it, Merry!