Question of the Week: Have you found any unusual occupations in your family tree?

Question

 

Most of my family were farmers, but every now and then I find someone who stepped out of the farming box and did something a little different. Recently, I found a couple of sisters who were milliners. Last week I ran across a traveling musician. 

I'd love to hear about the unusual occupations you've found! 

 

 

 

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*** Just a reminder: This isn't the best place to pick a best answer. :-) ***

Comments

Had several ancestor who were writers of poems, plays, and books during the late 1890's through the early 1900's on the Isle of Man, which is located off the coast of England. However, my favorite was my grandfather's, we lived in a small town and he was the barber and mayor.

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I recently found a 'carriage trimmer' in my tree.  My husband commented that even back then, people were looking for someone to pimp their ride!

I also have a number of Covenenter ministers, which was something entirely new to me when I started this research!

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Night Scavenger

Tree Surgeon

Key Master to the Kings Wine Cellar

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I was a butterfly farmer for five years in Connecticut. Met many interesting people in the Lepidoptera world and traveled to beautiful butterfly habitats.

Also taught in school systems as butterflies teach protection, habitat, conservation etc - also they don't bite or spread disease.

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My Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother were in Vaudeville. He was also an Amusement Park Manager.

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My 3rd Great Grandfather was part Executer of Samuel S. Seward's estate.

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Direct descendants from King Louis VI on my dads side. Great great great great x many Grandfather  De Villiers marries  great great grea x many Grandmother Dreux ... its on the Grandmothers side (Her father)

 

From then on all grannies and grandads are kings and queens of here there and all over the show.  noble blood...But before that, they were into Wine farming -*the "younger" ancestors*- in South Africa.

 

Still pretty stoked to have found out.

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My mother is a thoroughbred pedigree specialist and has researched thoroughbred pedigrees for over 30 years and wrote books on it.

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i have just put in a relative john quintrell whose occupation in 1901 was a scavenger

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I have a chief announcer r n pension so is that something to do with payroll or something in the royal navy

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I have just come across a pig dealer :)

Answer 1

My great-great-grandfather (a jeweller) had a side business flipping houses with his brother (a builder) in 1900s Brooklyn.  It looks like they went bust about 1911.

Another great-great-grandfather was a private chef on a yacht, and travelled all around the world before settling down in NYC and opening a restaurant there.  After the Depression, he became an insurance salesman with MetLife.

Yet another great-great-grandfather was a building superintendent in the Bronx who also had a moonshine-making business on the side (and spent time in jail for it).

Quite a few family members worked for the New York Railway Express: train drivers, a "tower man", and even a photostat operator.

Same with the New York Telephone Company:  one my great-grandmothers was a pioneer telephone operator and got a pension when she retired.  Her son (my grandfather) was a plant supervisor.  I've found aunts, uncles, cousins working there... even both of my parents had jobs there at one point.

Quite a few professional firemen, too: one great-great-uncle was the telegraph operator for the Brooklyn FD; great-uncle, great-grandfather, and both grandfathers served as fire chiefs for their respective towns.

My great-grandmother owned a restaurant that advertised live music from an oompah band every Wednesday night.

One of my grandfathers built and fixed televisions. 

Both of my parents are nurses.
 

Answer 2

I'm always coming across occupation names that I don't understand.

One of my great great grandfathers was listed in one census as a "teaser bottle works". (So did he tease the bottles, or the other workers? And why?)

Another great great grandfather was listed as a "french polisher". (So do French people need to be polished frequently?) 

Not in my tree, but in my other research, I have come across some equally confusing occupation names:

"Higgler" and "higgler wife": I got my wife laughing by declaiming, "Never fear, Dorset," (or whatever the county was) "when there's higgling to be done, so-and-so is on the job!"

"Clogger": (I'm not sure whether his job was giving plumbers things to do, or dancing in clogs. Neither one seems particularly lucrative, though.)

 

Comments

I have a "French Polisher" in my tree too.

French polishing is a technique (using many thing layers of shellac) for putting a very high gloss on high quality furniture.  So French polisher is someone who works in a furniture factory, putting the final "finish" on the furniture.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_polish

 

In glass blowing, a "teaser" is responsible for regulating the fires in the furnace. See https://dismatecglassplant.com/glossary-of-furnace-terms/

 

Depending on the context, a higgler is either a peddler, or a trader in dairy and poultry. (Google search).

 

A clogger makes clogs (shoes with wooden soles).

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Thank you, Janet. I finally got my act together and created categories for Teasers and French Polishers.

I haven't found the higgler or clogger that I had come across before.

Answer 3

Does moonshinning bootlegger count?  My Papaw was neighbors with the Hatfields and McCoys.  If he wasn't in the business, he surely kept them in business.

Answer 4

My great grandfather was a mortician.   

Answer 5

Not in my direct family tree but ran across an individual who was a canary reserve keeper (think eastern Ohio coal mines).

Answer 6

PIRN WINDER Someone who wound the yarn onto large wheel like bobbins which were then ready to feed the looms in a cotton mill

My GG grandmother was age 82 and working as a princess winder in Scotland. 

Answer 7

Not perhaps particularly unusual, but I have an awful lot of women on my tree who were Lace Makers.  This is partly geographical (Bedfordshire, UK), but sometimes I just wonder to myself if you put all the lace made by my family together, how far would it go.

I did try my hand at bobbin lace when I was a teenager, but I suspect I was nowhere in the same league ;-)

Answer 8

My 2nd Great Grandfather, Charles S. Burge, at the age of 17 was a Hair Dresser in Somerset, Bath, England (1861). After immigrating to the US in 1865, he became a Wig Maker in St. Louis. By 1900 he had become a Life Insurance Agent. Then he changed professions again by 1910 (around the age of 70) and had become a Wagon Maker.

Answer 9

Glassblower.

Answer 10

Claude Landry 1662-1748  coureur de bois

On March 11, 1686, Claude was hired by M.M de la Ice du Nord to carry food to Montreal, Temiscamingues, Abittiby, and the far end of the baye du Nord and to bring back pelts.

   On January 12, 1687, he was hired again by la Cie du Nord to work on a boat piloted by Captain Maron.    

 

 

Answer 11

My paternal grandfather was a truly a jack-of-all-trades, ranging from being a farmer, carpenter, barber, and working for a railroad which included being a night watchman.  His carpenter skills landed him work for the US government during WWII, wherein he worked in Panama and Maryland, but his carpentry work at the Hanford, Washington site was by far the most interesting to me.  One tends to think of scientists when one thinks of the Manhattan Project, but many ordinary folks found much needed work there, including my grandparents.  My grandmother also worked in the mess hall there, setting tables.  My father was a child during their stay and apparently spent a lot of time at the local matinee!

Answer 12

Pope Alvey was the executioner fr the colony of Maryland.

Answer 13

There was one guy, his family came to Florida from the Bahamas. Maybe loyalists who came to the Bahamas after the Revolution. He married a distant cousin. He was the Chief Customs Inspector at Key West during Prohibition. I kinda figure he could be a TV show.

Another guy was a pioneer aviator, married a distant cousin. Flew the postmaster general & some mail for the first "air mail"; dropped sandbags on a fair in San Diego to demonstrate the ability to drop bombs from planes, trained pilots before instructors were certified; surveillance by air against Pancho Villa along the Rio Grande and so on. Not unusual in hindsight, but pioneering. The amazing thing was his death: Shot to death by a retired judge in Oklahoma City. Quite the scandal at the time. His coffin was sent by train to Arlington. Several planes flew low over the train, strewing roses on it. Belongs in a movie.

Those two are without looking anything up.

Answer 14

My great great grandfather William Patrick is listed as a tinker in one census record.

Answer 15

My original Irish Ancestor (1860) to New York started out by collecting junk off the street.  He then opened his own junkyard.  His wife was a laundress.  His daughters were a Hoop Skirt Maker and a Dress Maker.  

My original German ancestor (1860) waas a Shoe and Boot Maker.  

My original Irish/Canadian ancestors (1850's) were originally farmers.  Then became brick makers and lumberjacks.  

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2nd Generation Irish Canadian Great Grandmother married a Harness Maker.  Her 3 sons learned to be Operating Engineers in the Calumet, Michigan Copper Mines.  When her husband died she became an Insurance Salesman.  Quite an unusual occupation for a woman back then.  But she was a Daughter of the American Star (Masons) and we a sure tha had something to do with that.  She must have done quite well because she then moved to Kansas Cit and opened a Boarding House that was i a huge 4 story tall brownstone building.  Two of her sons signed up to work on the Panama Canal.  The 3rd son who was only 18 was sent to live with a man man in Kentucky where he learned to drive a locomotive.  He then did the railroad run from Kansas City to Manitoba, Canada but eventually  also went to work on the Panama Canal.  

The 2nd Generation Irish in New York City became a Correction Officer, a Teamster that worked for the Park Department.  Probably associated with Tamanny Hall politicans who got them City jobs.  3rd broter was a Carriage Driver who died when he attempted to reign in his runaway horse and got a strangulated hernia.  He died 8 hours later from Shock and Pain.  

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3rd Generation th woman worked in Department Stores, the men  became Police Officers in NewYork City..

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4th Generation.   WWI men of course served.  Dad was a decorated. Pacific Theater vet.  His brother Frank survived 25 bombing missions over Europe as a bombadier.  When the war in Europe was over Frank was ordeed to the Pacific on a Top Secret Mission.  Before the war Frank was a highly skilled photographer.  His mission?  To photograph the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki from a trailing plane.  My Uncle Frank took this photos August 9, 1945.  

http://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-mushroom-cloud-of-atom-bomb-exploded-over-nagasaki-japan-on-august-world-war-251930701.jpg

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Answer 16

Not so unusual for the day in textile areas of Scotland but my g grandmother was a Pirn Winder , she would wind yarn onto large bobbins in preparation for the hand loom weavers work.  She was aged 82 on the census with young granddaughters working as Bonnet Knitters.

Answer 17

I discovered that some of my ancestors were real Knights in the 15th- and 16th-century ancient times of England, and some of them fought in the famous War of the Roses family-feud conflicts. One of my relatives, a distant cousin, turned out to be the best man at William Shakespeare's wedding, and he was Shakespeare's neighbor for years.

Answer 18

Trash Hauler (3 Generations)

Answer 19

I found at least one occupation I never heard of before, in Swedish "sprutlagare".

I had to look it up. It's someone who mends the fire hoses! This was in the middle of the 1800s in Stockholm.

Comments

I've got one, too! Middle of the 1700s.

They were cobblers to begin with. I have been told that volunteering as sprutlagare was a way for unaffiliated cobblers to ply their trade without having their equipment destroyed by the cobblers' guild. But then I have found, by Googling, master cobblers who were listed as sprutlagare - so I just don't know.

Answer 20

I don't know how unusual an occupation this is, but my grandfather was a stonemason, and built the house I was born in in West Virginia. He was also a xarpenter, blacksmith and pig farmer.