Just a few quick thoughts about the occupations of my Dad's male ancestors:
-All Dad's family lived in Maine and New Hampshire from the late 18th and early 19th
centuries on. so the main occupation on the list is farming. But some of them alternated that
with working at things that they could do while still living on their farms: miller, "lumbering",
blacksmith, or wheelwright. In some cases their sons were working the farm they all lived on.
-I've blogged before about my 3x great grandfather being on the 1850 Census for both the
neighboring towns of Mason and Albany, Maine. I'm still not sure how that happened, unless
his property straddled the town line with the mill being in Mason which would explain the two different occupations as well.
-Two of my ancestors, Nathaniel Barker and John Laughton V, appeared to have turned their
farms over to their sons and moved into town where they were working as "laborers" in their 70's.
-Great grandfather Frank W. Barker was the only ancestor in these generations to not have
worked at farming as an adult. I wonder if it was just a matter of better pay or if he was
drawn in by the excitement of working for a railroad?
-It will take me a bit longer to list the occupations of earlier ancestors in Dad's family since
the censuses before 1850 don't list occupations. Other documents, such as Probate files and
Land Records will help me there, as well as the information in court case files and family
genealogies.
As for my Mother's side of the family, since I don't have much information about the
ancestors who lived in Germany and Ireland, the list of occupations will be shorter. I'll
deal with that in another post.
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