Old occupations and their names can leave us scratching our heads or sometimes even raising a smile at the unusual names.
We can learn much about our ancestors' lives from their occupations and they can provide a social history as people moved from agricultural based jobs to industrial and white collar work.
So how do we find out what our ancestors did for a living and what other information can we find out from their occupation?
Usually we find out our ancestors' occupations from birth, marriage and death records along with census records. There are many other sources of information too such as trade directories and even family papers that have been kept over the years.
Matching their occupation to where our ancestors lived means that we can research local workplaces to find out where they are likely to have worked. In some cases there is only one possible workplace but even if it's not possible initially to find only one potential workplace, with a list of probable employers, there is every possibility of finding lists of employees or trade directories which can highlight where your ancestor worked.
Another aspect of this research is to look at the conditions in which your ancestor worked. Was it dangerous? How many hours did they work? What was the pay like?
Using a "puddler" as our example, we can see how expanding this basic information will build up a picture of someone's life.
A puddler was highly skilled and dangerous occupation which required physical strength, stamina and sustained concentration.
Puddlers were also known a iron puddlers and they were employed in iron works to turn brittle pig iron into malleable wrought iron during the late 18th century and the 19th century. This meant that they had to be skilled practical chemists along with being strong and have great endurance and mental strength in extreme conditions.
They worked long hours and were unlikely to reach the age of 50 given the dangerous conditions in which they worked. It could be a relatively well paid job due to its skill and danger however not everyone was paid well as some employers took advantage of their employees.
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| Iron Puddler |
The process of changing the iron from pig iron to wrought iron involved adding chemicals to the iron at a very high temperature and with no monitoring devices, the puddlers had to gauge for themselves when the iron was ready for the next stage of the process.
Puddlers had to stir a ball of some five hundredweight of molten iron to expose it to the flame and often had to carry the molten balls around.
There was no safety equipment in those days and the puddlers worked in extreme heat. The trade paper "Iron" noted in 1882 that in warm weather it was no uncommon thing to see a puddler drop down dead.
As one puddler called JJ Davies recalled:
I am like some frantic baker in the inferno kneading a batch of iron bread for the devil's breakfast.
If you are interested in finding out about your ancestors' occupations, then please get in touch for a no obligation chat to find how we can help.
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