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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: suziq on Tuesday 09 February 16 11:11 GMT (UK)
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Hi
Can anyone help me decipher the 1871 census for Isaac Bellamy born 1832 (sorry I don't know how to attach it to here). These are the jobs of 2 of his daughters, would be grateful if anyone can decipher the writing to tell me the full job title or just let me know what the jobs may have been.
Many thanks
Suziq
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This is the entry
Stan
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Coffin furniture fancier.
Pearl box marking?
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Thank you Stan :)
I had thought it may be Pearl box marking but just seemed a bit odd and I hadn't thought of/seen fancier. Many thanks tillipeg.
Suziq
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Pearl box making perhaps ?
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Pearl box making perhaps ?
That is how it reads to me too.
Jebber
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Thank you Jebber and ShaunJ
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Eliza is the only coffin furniture fancier in any of the censuses so I suspect that it's a mistranscription by the enumerator. In Aston in 1871 there were 41 people engaged in the coffin furniture industry, including makers, blackers, japanners, stampers, porters, furnishers, packers, improvers (and one fancier).
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Hmmm the plot thickens!!!
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Coffin furniture farrier.
Pearl box making.
I figure that a coffin furniture farrier is a blacksmith/farrier, who specialises in making coffin handles, rather than (say) horse shoes and garden gates.
A pearl box maker I'd think was somebody who probably worked from home decorating boxes with pearls and pearl veneers for the novelty and fashion industries. The boxes could be lidded boxes intended for dressing tables, or even the backs of mirrors/brushes or compacts (make-up).
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How likely is it that a 16 year old girl was a blacksmith/farrier?
Stan
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How likely is it that a 16 year old girl was a blacksmith/farrier?
Stan
Probably quite likely. They worked at younger ages back then and, limiting her skills to making coffin handles isn't arduous at all. It's something that a competent person could do quite easily in the corner of the workshop, or maybe just part-time, on demand, when she wasn't doing other household duties, or one day/week.
A "little extra" income made possible by knowing the local blacksmith, or being related to them.
These days she'd be flogging them on etsy
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Coffin furniture farrier.
The original most definitely says 'fancier'. Are you perhaps suggesting that the enumerator has mis-read farrier on the original and written fancier :-\
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Coffin furniture farrier.
The original most definitely says 'fancier'. Are you perhaps suggesting that the enumerator has mis-read farrier on the original and written fancier :-\
No. What I was looking at wasn't that version. I was looking at post #2
:)
That is definitely fancier. I was answering the question of what I thought Post #2 looked like.
I do tend to skim threads, especially long ones, as I do find the site layout/design to be "full of stuff" that "does my head in" and it can be tedious/long-winded to try to follow everything that's been said.... so I just stuck with Post #1 and answered :)
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Bull**** baffles brains
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Maybe she "fancies up" the coffin furniture -- paints or polishes them ?
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I wonder if she was doing "Fancy Work" as opposed to 'plain work', as in needlework, for the lining of the coffin?
Stan
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I think she probably made the coffin furniture look fancy or fancier than when she received it. Maybe she took the burrs from off the metal castings and then polished the items.
We once bought a workshop that had last been used by a coffin maker and the old safe was full of brass handles and fancy brass pieces for the corners of the coffins.
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Hi, thank you for all this info, I was wondering how a 16 year old girl could be a farrier too! It's interesting to see all the possibilities that it could be.
Thank you all for all your input.
Suziq
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Apart from it being
impossible very unlikely that a 16 year old girl would have completed an apprenticeship, a farrier works with horses, they have to have blacksmithing skills but are not blacksmiths. A blacksmith may never come into contact with horses in a work related way.
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Oxford English Dictionary
fancier, n.
2. One who makes tasteful designs.
1856 J. Ruskin Mod. Painters III. 203 Their...most brilliant fanciers were employed in...embroidering the robe.
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See http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=402146.msg2714041#msg2714041
Stan