I didn't know about the troubles when they introduced threshing machines, I suppose we've just got used to people being laid off due to auutomation.
This also goes a long way to explain why, as we go further back in our research, some of our ancestors have been found living many miles away not only in another County but in the countryside.
I would think if anyone was listed around that time as a Labourer instead of Ag Lab, they may have been one of those men employed to hand thresh at harvest-time, but do other work the rest of the year.
Actually, on learning the name of the owner of the Acton Estate (Thomas Stackhouse Acton) it has given me another area to search for my elusive Richard Stackhouse (b 1783) my 4 x g.grandfather.
There is a connection with the area around the Acton's (Scott and Burnell)as the one of the grandson's of Richard married an Everall from the same area in Shropshire and in the 1860/70's had members of her family living with her in Wolverhampton.
Jean
