Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Our Ancestors' Occupations

Author

Message

dorzechowicz

Joined: 25 Sep 2017
Replies: 19
Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
Back to top

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 3:12 pm Post subject: Our Ancestors' Occupations

I know there is no such thing as an easy way for anything when it comes to genetic research, but can someone give me a nudge in the right direction for determining the occupations of our ancestors in the old country? I know exactly one: a distant ancestor on my mother's side was "Royal Gamesman"; I assume that means that Hagrid is an ancestor of mine, and not that they were playing "Call of Duty" in 18th century Slovakia!

Dzięki!

Dave Orzechowicz
Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

JGwizdowski
PolishOrigins Patron

Joined: 26 Feb 2016
Replies: 233
Location: United States
Back to top

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 5:03 pm Post subject:

In my experience, birth and marriage records from the Prussian and Russian districts provide the best information for occupations. Records I've located from the Austrian partition have all been Latin, with little to no info on occupation.

Joe
_________________
"As long as we are remembered, we remain alive."

dnowicki
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2956
Location: Michigan City, Indiana
Back to top

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 8:35 pm Post subject:

JGwizdowski wrote:

Joe,

I’m afraid that I must disagree with your assessment of occupations found in records from the Austrian Partition aka Galicia. Although I have no relatives from that area, based on the well over a thousand records I’ve translated on PO as well as for friends, occupations/social status data is regularly entered in the records. Often the info is rather generic like agricola/farmer or uxor/wife or inquilinus/tenant, etc. but it is rare that such info describing the main persons in the entry is not recorded. Two notable exceptions are in the marriage records of young people who had not been married previously and the father & mother in birth/baptism records. In such records the occupation/status of the parents and/or the grandparents is what is included. If a groom’s father is listed as a farmer, it is safe to assume that prior to the wedding the groom worked alongside his father on the family farm and the bride helped her mother with the household chores and the management of the family home---that was more than a full-time occupation.

Prior to the emancipation of the peasants in 1848 records from Galicia are more detailed in describing the status of males. A man was not just described as generically as “a farmer” but specifically as “a tenant” or “a gardener” or “ a self-sustaining farmer”, etc. The goal of the Austrian government was to keep records for military and taxation purposes and thus the importance of degree of status.

The occupational information is usually there but just not always in an obvious form.

Dave

JGwizdowski
PolishOrigins Patron

Joined: 26 Feb 2016
Replies: 233
Location: United States
Back to top

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 7:21 pm Post subject:

I should have qualified that my experience is pretty limited to the 3 or 4 church records I've located for my paternal grandfather and his family. In the three birth records for my g.father and his siblings, none have indicated the father's occupation. Similarly, the death record for my g.grandmother, from the Zolynia administrative district, provides only her husbands name. The one exception is the church record for my gg.grandfather's death, which does list his occupation.

The records for my search have been sparse, so this is all I have on which to base my experience. I keep hoping that I'll eventually find a more expansive source of records.

Regards,
Joe

Josephus_from_Gwizdow_1880.jpg

Description:

Filesize:

101.34 KB

Viewed:

0 Time(s)

_________________
"As long as we are remembered, we remain alive."

dorzechowicz

Joined: 25 Sep 2017
Replies: 19
Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
Back to top

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 8:23 pm Post subject:

Thanks, gentlemen! It is indeed a honor to receive assistance from experienced researchers as you, and I thank you for your time.

I am still new to geneology, but have been lucky to make some jackpot connections, which have resulted in the explosive growth of my family tree. Still,mostly all I have are some names and dates, admittedly much more than I ever thought I would get. But putting meat on the bones is what I would like to do now, and learning what my ancestors did would be a thrill.

Today, I had a small taste of that feeling when I fell down a rabbit hole chasing what I thought was a great uncle and his father. It seemed that they were math and physics teachers at a gymnasium. After a couple of hours of excited digging, it appears as if I was following the wrong Jan and Michał Orzechowicz. But the thrill of the chase out its hooks in me now!

Henryk
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Replies: 314
Location: London ON, Canada
Back to top

Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:49 pm Post subject:

I am reading the Latin records of Zaborów Parish, Małopolska. Although later records are usually complete, records about 1800 are sparse.
Example: LDS Film 997944, image 3Q9M-CSXL-597L-2: Births, Kwików, 1801.
Only parents names are given, without grandparents names or occupations. Names and occupations of Godparents are given.
Perhaps the data were in the original records, but not in the copies.

PolishOrigins Forum