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?

Grandparents both sides all worked in the pottery industry, one Grandad was a Saggar makers bottom knocker
Had a great Uncle who buggered off with Barnums Circus when they toured the UK and became a top horse trainer.
Mum worked in pottery all her life.
Dad was a test driver (and it was as glamorous as it sounds!)

Not sure about my GGPs but paternal GF was a baker and maternal GF was a bookie.

I do know my GGGF was charged with murder and hanged tho!

Am i a really bad person that i dont know in detail?

I mean my grandad is easy, he was in the SAS then left and was TA plus drayman plus taxi driver (it has been suggested that he didnt like spending time with my nan!). My nan, i only ever know of her cleaning when i was little, i have no idea about before.

My other grandad was foreman in a steelworks. My nan on that side, i have no idea.

Paternal GGF and GGM - travellers, so no fixed employment I think.
Maternal GPs/GGPs - no idea, dead a long time before I was born and mum never talks about them.

Paternal GF - Settled traveller. Delivered coal on barges (Army during WW1, survived)
Paternal GM - took in washing, unofficial midwife.

Father - electrical engineer/motor rewinds. Radar Op during WW2 - didn't deploy.
Mother - bookkeeper

Me - Army
DH - Army

DD - wants to be a vet (for now, who knows what will happen later!)

Maternal grandmother: teacher
Maternal grandfather: engineer

Paternal grandmother: housewife/accounts for family business
Paternal grandfather: ran a car dealership

I'm ashamed to say I have no idea about my great grandparents but I think my great grandmothers were housewives.

My grandma left school at 12 and worked in a cotton mill she used to climb under moving looms to clean them for an extra penny

Paternal grandfather: miner
Paternal grandmother: homemaker, part time cleaner later in life

Maternal grandfather: miner, then heating and ventilation engineer
Maternal grandmother: nurse, part time dressmaker

Father: horticultural engineer
Mother: university admin manager

Me: university administrator - apple didn't fall far from the tree

Maternal grandfather: Quarry worker (who was killed in an industrial accident)
Maternal grandmother: worked in an office until she got married.
Paternal grandfather: gamekeeper, later on lorry driver
Paternal grandmother: did the accounts for a bakery

Further back, all my relatives were involved in country occupations - farm workers, gamekeepers, estate workers etc.

MGM: nurse
MGF: navy and then a businessman
PGM: secretary
PGF: RAF
Don't know about great grandparents.
Wish they all had more interesting jobs.

I don't actually know what my great grandparents did for a living. I know that the great grandparents on my father's side were extremely working class, impoverished immigrants and on my mother's side more middle class but I don't know what any did for a living.

Maternal grandmother was a SAHM for pretty much the entirety of my mother's childhood. When I was growing up she did the odd cleaning job to pass the time.
Maternal grandfather was an artist, he created billboards. He also was the caretaker at the church. He now works in his wife's church doing the food bank (she's the vicar).

Paternal grandfather I don't actually know what he did. He died when I was four and my grandmother has always been too heartbroken to talk much about him.
Paternal grandmother was a primary school teacher for 30 years. Before that she did various jobs including working as a store assistant in dolci's which has given her the most incredible shoe knowledge imaginable.

My grandmother studied econ/political science at uni and then stayed at home after she got married and had children. Her husband did something with finance. Previous generations....landowners and military. Still get income from various properties/farms.

My other grandmother studied Greek and Latin at uni and stayed at home after she got married and had children and her husband was a partner in a firm....I think their parents had agricultural backgrounds.

Actually I do know my PGGFs job but it would massively out me. (Politics).

Maternal Grandad: Chemist
Maternal Granny: SAHM, later a pharmacy assistant

Paternal Grandad: Hedge cutter (yes, that was a real job with council pension etc ...he cycled around cutting public hedges in the Irish countryside).
Paternal Granny: SAHM

If you go further back the women were all SAHMs, the men on my dads side were all farmhands/labourers, but my maternal great grandfather was a fairly high profile newspaper editor and his father was a Presbyterian Minister.

Heh. Well I do family history in a a big way (mostly other people's families, so not for narcissistic reasons).

It's actually one of the best windows into social history you can get. Exactly like Who Do You Think You Are, you find yourself researching the social and economic context around individuals, and watching their lives unfold.

It's very different from reading a high-level history book which can only talk about trends and major events. At the family level, you get to see how those events actually affected people - and not just for the five minutes of the event, but unto the next generation.

All historical research needs a theme to give it focus. Family history is a perfectly good one, and has hugely enriched my understanding of high-level history.

(Agree it might be a good idea to namechange for this sort of thread though, if your family is distinctive.)

One grandfather I only know his war record. The other was a master baker till he lost his sight and then worked in the blind asylum.
One grandmother hand painted designs onto fine china until her marriage.

Only one grandparent was alive long enough for me to know them. I have learned about the others from family stories but they are about WHO they were not WHAT they were.

Maternal Great Granddad - Army (Western Front, First World War)
Maternal Great Grandma - Bookbinder (but was illiterate as in here is her mark. For the record it was an X.)

Maternal Great Granddad (Nanna's father) - Furniture maker
Maternal Great Grandmother (Nanna's mother) - can't remember

Paternal Great Grandparents - no idea

Maternal Granddad - Army then gas meter reader
Maternal Grandma - Nurse before and after marriage (the RSVP for her wedding were to go to her sister, I assume her parents were dead by then.) My Maternal GGD was missing presumed deceased by then too.

Paternal Granddad - Soap manufacturer
Paternal Grandmother - not known, probably housewife

Dad - butcher
Mum - secretary

Me - office administration. Well, I would be if I wasn't unemployed.

Maternal gm nurse
Maternal gf children's home manager

Paternal gf miner
Paternal gm SAHM/ worked on farms during summer.

Paternal grandfather Window factory owner
Paternal grandmother housewife

Maternal great grand father Guiness Factory Worker
Maternal grandfather manager/engineer

My maternal grandfather was a builder/ farmer as was his father and grandfather before him.
Granny and all the women who came before her were farmers wives
My paternal grandfather trained to be a priest but then discovered girls and eventually was a bus driver. His father was a taster at a whiskey factory.
My granny never worked outside the home but mainly devoted herself to her alcoholism. Her dad was a train driver which we all thought was pretty cool when we were kids.

Maternal grandmother Airforce
Maternal grandfather Army

Paternal grandfather merchant
Paternal grandmother a SAHM I guess. She did however share her living arrangements with my grandfathers concubine. Yep you read that correct. This is China, they fled the Communists and lost their pretty darn amazing home, it is now a museum.

Maternal great grandfather was a Victorian industrialist who owned a huge hat factory.

Paternal Grandad - Bank clerk
Paternal Grandmother - worked in a tea merchants, got married, did charity work.

maternal Grandad - Civil servant
maternal Grandmother - housewife
other maternal grandmother - school teacher

Paternal Great Grandfather - solicitor

Maternal Grandfather: quartermaster, civil servant
Maternal Grandmother: WAAF, housewife and occasional waitress

Paternal Grandfather: captain in the merchant navy
Paternal Grandmother: housewife

Me: University teacher

Paternal great grandfather. - prime minister (allegedly!)
Paternal great grandmother- kitchen maid

Paternal Grandfather- policeman
Paternal grandmother-bookkeeper in carpet factory

Maternal great grandparents - no idea

Maternal grandfather - welder/criminal
Maternal grandmother- cook

Father - policeman
Mother/ admin in automotive factory

Me/ business advisor and writer

Not sure of great grandparents.

Grandparents:
Maternal- nurse + builder
Paternal- shopkeeper (family shop) + builder

Mum: midwife
Dad: joiner/tiler/labourer

Me: cleaner/shop assistant

DS1(10) wants to run a pet hotel (previously wanted to be a binman)
DS2 (7) wants to work in our corner shop.