English: Occupations - Professions and Trades

Optional Print Course Material: English: Professions and Trades

*Course material will only be sent to students who are registered in the course.

Many of the basic sources for family history such as civil registration, censuses, parish registers and wills will mention the occupations followed by your ancestors. This course looks first at the many ways of finding out what they did, then mentions generally useful sources. This is followed by a study of the classification of occupations. Sections on training & qualification in trades and professions allow us to profitably use the records generated therein. An understanding of the role of the various occupational associations is the next topic. 

The bulk of the text consists of nine main groups of trades and professions. These are agriculture, building, commercial services, domestic services, fishing and whaling, manufacture, merchants and retailers, mining and quarrying, and professional activities. For each category there is an introduction to the available printed and manuscript sources regarding the nature of the various professions and trades, and then some indication of what records survive on the actual men and women engaged therein. 

In a course of this size these descriptions have to be short but they endeavour to cover the main points of significance for the genealogist/family historian. Such brevity invites superficiality and glibness; however, it is offset by the inclusion of a significant body of reference material which should lead the student to more detailed information about each trade and profession. 

Course Length: 9 weeks