What jobs did your Grandparents do?

[VioletBam]

And your Great Grandparents....AND what do you do? I'm just interested in the journeys...and I know this isn't really an AIBU but hey...there are more people here!

Here are mine....

Maternal Grandfather: Steelworker
Maternal Grandmother: Cleaner

Paternal Grandfather: Steelworker
Paternal Grandmother: Waitress

Great Maternal Grandfather: Boilermaker/Steelworker
Great Maternal Grandmother: Maid in a private house

Great Paternal Grandfather: Docker
Great Paternal Grandmother: Cleaner

Me: Actor and copywriter

I want to see other people's lists if possible...I find it fascinating that such a short time ago, some of my relatives couldn't write...a couple of those listed signed their marriage certificates with an X and beside that, the Registrar had written "Her mark".

It seems so strange...so few years have passed but so much social change has gone on. What will OUR great grandchildren see when they look at our records?

East I'm from your neck of the woods, Will check that out, thanks!

Pat GP-Mill worker and dinner lady
Mat GP- Car salesman and fashion buyer
Me-retail manager, currently on Mat leave (married to a commercial van salesman of sorts, so a bit of history repeating there.)

Paternal gf - clerk
Paternal gm - shop bookkeeper

Maternal gf - cigarette factory foreman
Maternal gm - Marconi's pa then sahm

Ah yes, the workhouses.

One of the Birmingham ones was very proud that it achieved really low occupancy rates by providing only a communal shelf for sleeping on, and the shelf sloped.

www.workhouses.org.uk/Birmingham/

That's a wonderful site for anyone investigating workhouses, industrial schools and children's homes. It has details on hundreds of institutions.

I love this stuff , thanks Surely.

Maternal Grandmother - silver service waitress.

Maternal Grandfather - welder in shipyards/ in merchant navy/ fire service/ manufacturing industry.

Paternal Grandfather - miner - died in pit accident New Year's Eve 1939.

Paternal Grandmother - dinner lady/ cleaner/anything that would pay as no widow's pension back then and she was a single parent.

Me: learning support in primary school.

Mat gdad - teacher
Mat gmum - SAHM

Pat gdad - department store buyer
pat gmum - SAHM

Mat gdad dad - fisherman
Mat gmum dad - landowner

Pat gdad dad - ???
Pat gmum dad - ???

Me - SAHM / designer

Well
Paternal side
Gf - ship owner
gm - lady of Leisure

Gff - as above
Ggm - as above

maternal side
gf - fighter pilot killed in 1941
gm - house wife
Step gf ships dr until his ship torpedoed in 1943 one of only 9 survivors. Then gp

Ggf- commanded battle ship at battle of Jutland
Ggm - navy wife

Maternal grandfather: Pharmacist and mayor of his town
Maternal grandmother: raised the kids

Paternal grandfather: Factory worker
Paternal grandmother: Part time retail worker

Both of my parents are secondary teachers.

I am a nursery teacher, but am looking for work in technical writing.

Maternal grandfather: train driver
Maternal grandmother: dinner lady

Paternal grandfather: Oxford don
Paternal grandmother: teacher

Me: teacher

I don't know what all my great grandparents did, except for one of my great grandfathers. He was a taylor who set up a business here and had his name anglicised after fleeing the Pogroms in Russia.

Maternal grandmother: secretary then housewife
Maternal grandfather: farmer

Paternal grandmother: Bletchley Park
Paternal grandfather: Engineer

Father: MoD engineer
Mother: Accountant

Me: Lawyer

Both sides: grandfathers = miners - grandmothers = cleaners.

Me = warehouse worker.

Father's side - generations of farmers, also engineers, teachers, vicars/missionaries.
Mother's side - farm workers, dock workers, factory workers. My mother mostly did secretarial and retail work.
I work in IT.

I find wondering about one's family tree to be the most tedious narcissism, but there we go. I mean, who cares what people you never met, or can have known only briefly as a young child, but happen to be ever-so-slightly related to you did? If you really care about history then study it
I've got a history degree partly because I was interested in it because of hearing about all the generations of my family when I was growing up. I've not researched it myself, because other people have done that, back centuries, and presented me with the results.

My maternal grandfather was a bookkeeper, and my maternal grandmother worked in a dressmakers then a munitions factory during the war.
My paternal grandfather was a power station worker, and I have no idea what my paternal grandmother did, but she gave it up when she married.

Mat grandfather - furniture maker
Mat grandmother - factory worker

Pat grandfather - commercial traveller
Pat grandmother - homemaker

Mat g grandfather - ?
Mat g grandmother -? (Gg grandfather was a gardener)

Pat g grandfather - butler
Pat g grandmother - maid

Me - student, one time musician and artist

" there are some of Mary of Teck (my mum always called her May of Teck), I think she was the grandmother of our Queen?"

That's Queen Mary, consort of George V and mother of Edward VIII and George VI - the present Queen's father - so yes, her grandmother.

Don't know about my great-grandparents. I do vaguely remember something about one set being involved in the Pearly Kings & Queens scene, & another one being a poet.

GF - fireman in London during the blitz alongside working as a trainee chef, then a soldier when he was old enough, then a chef in a big London hotel, then owned his own bakery, then ran a guesthouse.
GM - WAHM (sort of) alongside being a housewife until into old age, then ran the guesthouse with my grandad.

GF - factory work from 14, rose to a senior overseer.
GM - factory work from 14, then worked from home (I think) alongside being a housewife.

Ebearhug
Same here, always had interest in history at school, did history degree in my 30s partly because of stuff in our past.
My GM was a harsh selfish woman who cared only for herself it seemed. Her children judged her because of their childhood and only my mum bothered about her when she grew old.
They'd obviously had difficult childhood.
GM had two illegitimate children in a workhouse and so (it became obvious to me) married the first man to ask her - a 'confirmed batchelor' many years older. She had 7 children but was in a very ill matched marriage.
Consequently she did things that impacted on her children's childhood. And on how they poorly parented their children.
Looking at GM early life I could see why she got pregnant and why she took the survival route of a poor marriage.
Certainly helped me see patterns in the generations that helped shape the childhood I had.

maternal grandfather: Carpenter
Maternal grandmother: Mum

Paternal grandfather: Navy - DIed WW2 aged 21
Paternal grandmother: Cleaner

Paternal g. Grandfather - Navy - DIed WW1 - died age 24
Paternal G.Grandmother - CLeaner

dont know maternal great grandparents.

Pop was a RAF pilot
Gran was a nurse

Papa was a farmer
Gran was an secetary

I am in management working with vulnerable people

Pat GF - Chemical Engineer
Pat GM - Bank Clerk until marriage them sahm

Mat GF - Police officer then something to do with paint manufacturing
Mat GM - Singer then shop worker

Dad - Army officer/HMRC officer (now retired)
Mum - Chef, childcare assistant now restaurant supervisor

Me - Chef de Partie

Maternal gf was a farmer
Maternal gm was a cotton mill worker

No idea about my dads family. He spent his young life in orphanages with 3 of his siblings. My mum asked me if I remembered being sat outside a pub as a kid and a random bloke shouting at people outside? That was your dads dad she said. I just remembered him as the local weirdo kids were scared of. So glad I didn't know he was my grandad. I was bullied enough. That would have made it worse.

Great thread OP! I love history – the pace of change is breathtaking.

Paternal great grandfather: Biological one died of TB when my nan was very young. Her mother then married his brother, an upholsterer, and lived middle class lifestyle (nan had a bike, piano lessons and a telephone, in the 1930s). Then he got arthritis and couldn’t work.
Maternal grandmother: Married 3 times after losing 1st two husbands to TB. She and her husband took in lodgers to make ends meet and also ran [probably illegal] betting/gambling – that’s what the telephone was useful for. She also remembers running to local pubs etc to deliver results and winnings(!) My granddad was a man lodging in her house, which is how they met. He was 10 years older than my nan.

Maternal great grandfather: Unsure.
Maternal great grandmother: Unsure. She had 4 kids.

Paternal Grandfather: Worked in a shop general store/corner shop and eventually owned his own.
Paternal grandmother: Worked in a tobacco factory, think she stopped when she had kids (all 6 of them, each delivered in her mother’s front room). Helped run the shop when granddad bought it.

Maternal grandfather: Printer but died in his early 40s.
Maternal Grandmother: Servant in a house until she married. She wanted to be a nurse but her father saw it as a dirty profession and thought serving wealthy people was far more respectable. After my GF died she did whatever she could, cleaning office work.

Mother: Local civil servant in the rates (tax) dept. Gave it up when she had children. After kids was a dinner lady then a receptionist.
Father: Mechanical engineer draftsman Suffered terribly with the loss of manufacturing in the UK. Spent a fair few years of his working life on the dole.
I’m a solicitor, I qualified into a City practice. 1st generation university.

GMs were basically housewives. One had 6 children, the other only 1. But the second had animals and a small land to take care of. She used to bake bread herself and that sort, so a busy life.
One GD worked on railway track repairs.
The other had been a sailor and then was a sort of coast police officer. He oversaw the local fishermen, beaches, etc. At the time it was a remote area (touristy now) and he acted as nurse too.

I don't know much about great grandparents.
One was a farmer (apparently very clever and with Sherlock Holmes/tracker abilities) and the other was a shopkeeper, on my mother's side. No idea on fathers side. Must find out.

Parents: teacher, tax worker

Me: biologist, university lecturer

Maternal grandmother : ran a hotel abroad
Maternal grandfather : master baker
Paternal grandfather : electrician (shipyard then electricity board)
Paternal grandmother : bookkeeper & Olympic athlete (before she got married)
Me: architect