ANCESTORS at WORK
Work was an important part of your ancestor’s daily life, and learning what they did for a living will help you understand how they spent much of their time. Occupations also helped determine a person’s socio-economic status and role in the community. And work wasn’t limited just to men—Women often worked before they were married or if they were widowed or divorced at a young age, and children (both boys and girls) may have worked to help support the family.
Most importantly, an ancestor’s occupation can be a distinguishing characteristic that makes them easier to locate in record collections. This is particularly helpful if they had a common name, or if they lived in a heavily populated urban area.
You can uncover occupations in a variety of documents. What follows are 12 different sources that often reveal an ancestor’s occupation, some of which may also provide other fascinating details about the work they performed. (For information on how to research occupational records themselves, see page 58.)
1 FEDERAL CENSUSES
The 1820 and 1840 censuses asked how many residents of the household were engaged in various categories of industry (manufacturing, agriculture and commerce). But the 1850 US census—notable for being the first to list non-heads of household by name—was also the first to record specific occupations.
Later census records continued to ask about occupations, and provided even more details about employment. Beginning in 1880, for
