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Ever just browse the occupations in a census? Can be very interesting.
I'll start. Please feel free to add one to guess or tell us about interesting occupations you've come across in your research of any source.
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Cordwainer
Spoiler
A shoemaker. I've read that the name is from the kind of leather from Cordoba, Spain, and (or?) that cordwainers made new shoes while cobblers repaired them.
Perhaps, my response will be a little different as my ancestry is not European, but East Asian. And our family names may not derive from the occupation. I am Taiwanese-American. However, the first person from my father's side of the family moved to Taiwan from Longxi County (now Longwen District), Zhangzhou prefecture, Fujian Province, China to Taiwan. This is per an "ancestry tablet" (our genealogy record) our family has and also we have a painting of my ancestry from my father's side of the family to move to Taiwan. Thus, that would make him my 5x great grandfather. He was a Qing Dynasty imperial military scholar. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty He had the military version of the "juren" 舉人 degree or called a "wujuren" 武舉人 See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperi...n#Degree_types and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperi...y_examinations Thus, he was supposedly a provincial military court official or bureaucrat.
Sorry - don't know how to set up the "spoiler" thing. LOL
My older cousin used to candle the eggs for my grandfather. It meant that she would hold a candle up to the egg to see if it was fertile. I can only remember my grandfather's hen house and gathering the eggs to take into the house
I have tons of women in my lines who are listed as milliners. The husband or father was head of household and had a trade or was a farmer, but the wives and teenage and adult daughters were milliners. I guess they did hat making and hat "trimming" out of their homes for extra money.
I have a whole line of people from Leicester England who were frame work knitters.
These were skilled tradesmen who operated special machines to make stockings.
I have shoemakers from Germany and men in my Swedish line listed as "skomak" which is also a shoemaker.
Note: the show/hide button is not working to do a "spoiler." This has been a problem for several months now.
I have quite a few male ancestors who were listed as a "drayman" which was a delivery man.
I did a transcription of our local areas early census records in relation to black Americans in our city and I have never been able to find out what a "recef" is. Maybe someone knows. I had an ancestor listed as a "recef" as well.
I have also seen a "gurny" which I believe was someone who carried stuff around, but I'm not sure.
And I have seen "teamster" listed as an occupation as well. I'm familiar with the teamster union but never knew teamster was an occupation. They were men who drove a wagon as well. From what I have found, a drayman was usually a delivery man for a business and a teamster was a more long journey with more animals to drive.
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