MY FIVE GENERATIONS ANCESTRAL OCCUPATIONS CHART

The five generation chart bug bit me again!

Today I saw a post on Facebook from Michael John Neill of a five generations occupation chart. He'd been inspired by a chart posted on the Ancestor Archaeologist blog. Of course, I decided I had to do one too (and this time it only took me two times to get it right!).

As my previous post on the five generation birthplaces showed, my Dad's side of the family has been in New England back to colonial times, and most of his ancestors were farmers. But even though they farmed, they also worked at other things to make a living while farming. My great grandfather Philip J. West farmed, but also had a lumber business, a sawmill, and built roads for the county, sometimes doing all four in the same year. The one exception is my maternal great grandfather Frank W Barker who worked for the Grand Trunk Railroad in Maine most of his adult life and is listed as a "Master Baggage Handler" on his death record.

Mom's side of the family were immigrants, mostly from Ireland, who settled in Boston. Her two grandfathers worked for the City of Boston, one with the Street Department and the other as a "Teamster. Further back, one great grandfather had been a gilder of furniture, her lone German great grandfather a cabinet maker. Of the two great grandfathers who didn't immigrate to America, one was a bricklayer and the other's occupation was unknown.

I differentiated between housewives and farmwives because being a wife to a farmer entailed  more physical work than beyond running a household.

I list my Mom as a housewife, but as in many modern families, she worked at various paying jobs over the years, mostly part time, to help pay the household bills.

Another fun idea. Thanks Ancestor Archaeologist and Michael John Neill!