RootsChat.Com
Beginners => Family History Beginners Board => Topic started by: rayben on Friday 31 March 23 14:10 BST (UK)
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Any one know if you can find out ancestors job before the census started.
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Some marriages and childrens baptisms list occupations, also there may be newspaper reports about the person which often give occupation
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If your ancestors came from somewhere relatively small then it might be worth reading any local autobiographies, historical accounts in case they happen to be mentioned.
S_L
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Wills often give the occupation of the deceased.
Queenie :)
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Have a look on the Leicester University website at the HISTORICAL DIRECTORIES.
These directories list everyone living in places and you may be lucky and find the year you are interested in
https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4
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If they were tenant farmers you may find them in land records (I have some from the 1750’s). I also know the occupation of someone from the same period because it is given in a poor law removal order (so somewhat lower down the social scale than the farmers). I’ve been lucky with some poll books and apprenticeship documents too.
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Have a look on the Leicester University website at the HISTORICAL DIRECTORIES.
These directories list everyone living in places and you may be lucky and find the year you are interested in
https://specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p16445coll4
IME these can be informative but they certainly don’t list everyone in a place.
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There are a variety of quasi-censuses. For instance, the Great Fire of Potton in the 1780s burned down half the town, and the accounts of the trustees of the national appeal for relief survive. They list all of the loss claims ... who claimed, how much they had lost, and what dividend they received. And yes, all of their occupations are stated.
Then there are the registers of duty paid on apprenticeship deeds, which are digitised and searchable online. Their contents vary, but at best you get: name, place of abode/business and trade of master, name of apprentice; name, place of abode and occupation of apprentice's father; date of apprenticeship deed and premium paid.
If you have innkeepers / publicans in your family then you may be able to tap into a rich seam of justices' recognisances. Once a year they had to enter into a recognisance to keep an orderly house (a bond, effectively, which could be forfeit if they failed to do so) and in many places the justices' registers of recognisances survive. They may not be well indexed or easily searchable, but they are there, and you can check year-on-year whether your ancestor is still keeping the same house, or has moved on to a different one.
(The London Metropolitan Archives have a LOT of London recognisances ... but then there were a lot of public houses in London. They are not well indexed, however, so they can take a lot of searching ... )
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Thanks every one will try some of your suggestions just hope Lancashire is among some of them.
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Mainly baptism records; (they usually include the occupation of the father
There are also wills, but they are mainly for men/householders; sometimes widows;
There are also aprenticeship records; mainly young men around the age of 14 or 15, but this will give the occupation they are aprenticed to.
Sometimes there are records from the 'Parish Chest', such as settlement records, taxes (orders to pay for bridges, etc);
Sometimes burial records will include an occupation, but this depends on the parish priest/ or whoever recorded the burial