Can Modern Occupations Be Added?

+10 votes
280 views
I have been digging around in the category list (and even created a few sub-categories that were missing). I discovered the occupations category list, and realized that most of the occupations my husband and I have done are missing. For example, he is a "Help Desk Technician" - that is, he works in a call center and helps managers for his company when they have a technical issue or need repairs on restaurant equipment. I used to be a telemarketer and I have also been a dog walker, office manager, photographer, website designer, graphic designer, online community manager, social media manager, a consultant, etc. It seems most of the listed occupations are for older generations, before the internet or at least early in its cycle. It says not to add new occupations though so thought I'd ask here :)
in Policy and Style by Living Younger G2G6 Mach 1 (14.4k points)

3 Answers

+9 votes
 
Best answer
ETA - the whole point of genealogy is to investigate history - the past - and explore their lives. Not clutter up the "past" with our modern lives.

I personally would not want to clutter up the categories with all the jobs you have had. If you feel you must mention them, that can be done in the bio.
by Robynne Lozier G2G Astronaut (1.2m points)
selected by Tom Bredehoft
At some point, our lives will be the past though ;) I want to leave my bio with everything my children might want to know, so that they won't have to research it themselves.

I would likely pick only a couple of the most prominent jobs, not all of them. Besides, if that was your opinion, then what's the point of even having the occupation categories? ;)
The way I think about the categories is ‘does this category help me or others make connections and find relatives’, not ‘does the category tell me about this person’.

Plenty of people do think that the occupation categories and similar are overused: there’s not a lot of genealogical value in being able to see all the seamstresses, for example, because it’s such a common occupation and a list of people in that category has limited research value. I have only used the occupation categories for a handful of ancestors where members of the profession tend to be closely connected by blood or marriage (in my case, Merchants of the Staple) because the information helps me to connect across to related families that others have entered.

So I think putting the detail in your biography meets the aims of what you want to do: to leave a clear and full story of your life for those who are interested your life in the future. Adding categories only helps people who want to identify all the dog-walkers in the tree.
That makes sense. For example, my husband’s grandfather repaired pipe organs. His son (hubby’s uncle) took over the business at some point, and hubby did it as well. Now his cousin (son of his uncle) is the person running things. Pipe organ repair is a rare profession (they and one other company are the only ones in the state) so it would be useful in this case to know, especially since they also know the only other repairman in the stare. They also were extremely close with an electronic organ repairman AND the man who helped both of the pipe organ repair companies, so as you see they’re all extremely close.
+6 votes
well, you could create the categories, although I think Help Desk Technician would be rather extreme, doesn't actually communicate well on what the job is, you had to explain it.  There's a difference between titles and occupations.  Dog walker as a full-time job?

Meanwhile, there's no rush really, for the good and simple reason that most people doing these occupations are still very much alive and kicking, so you're going to see lots of ''unlisted profile'' in the occupation list for them.
by Danielle Liard G2G6 Pilot (643k points)
+3 votes

Where does it say not to add new occupations? On the Occupations category, it lists the guidelines for naming new occupation categories, and links to the Categorization help page. To me, that's practically begging people to add new occupations.

by Greg Slade G2G6 Pilot (664k points)

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