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?

... Meant to add that my maternal GGFs were a policeman and a professional football player (really! and pretty good by all accounts) and my paternal GGFs were a train driver and a fisherman. One of my GGMs was a fishwife but not sure about the others...

Paternal great grandfather: merchant seaman.
Paternal great grandmother : farm worker until married.
Maternal great grandfather: shepherd.
Maternal great grandmother: shepherded.
Paternal grandfather: engineer in car manufacturer.
Paternal grandmother: housewife.
Maternal grandfather: farm worker.
Maternal grandmother: shop worker.

My mum worked in various shops, my dad was a printworker. I'm a teacher, first one in my family to ever finish school and go to uni. It's a shame I can't see my own kids going. There's simply not enough money in being a teacher for me to be able to help them. I had grants, that's the only way I was able to go.

Grandfather owned a shop
Grandmother worked as a "civil servant". Think she was a secretary.

Great grandfather owned a coal mine
Great grandmother was the unqualified village witch/midwife/nurse/layer out of dead bodies.

Maternal gf - shipbuilder on the Clyde
Maternal gm - not sure, think housewife but also worked in posh ladies shop in glasgow on the glove counter.

Paternal gf - press photographer in Oxfordshire
Maternal - gm - teacher until married and then never worked again although gave piano lessons until 70).

Interesting thread OP fascinating piece of social history.
Paternal GF- miner
Paternal GM- shop owner (lost business after the Great Strike of 1926, let too many people own 'on tick')
DF- teacher (first in the family to go to university, quite something for a Valleys family in the '60's)

Maternal GF- accountant
Maternal GM- office worker
DM- nurse/army nurse

Me- graduate, now a Charity manager
My DD is a nursing student, 3rd generation university, something I'm immensely proud of and I put all down to my paternal GM.

Maternal GF: Master builder
Maternal GM: House wife

Paternal GF: Master greengrocer
Maternal GM: House wife

Me: Accountant

on my mum's side:
GGM & GGF - seamstress & teacher (GM's parents), my GF's parents were 'an academic' and 'a French woman'!
GM & GF - pharmacist & civil servant (agriculture)
Mum - midwife
Me/dbro/dsis - doctor, engineer, 'something in the arts'

On Dad's side:
GGM & GGF - mill workers & sailors
GM & GF - did secret-ish nuclear stuff for the military - engineering
Dad - engineer

There was a big increase in prosperity between my GGP & GP generation - particularly on my dad's side - my generation are definitely the poorest since then.

My DM was a nurse and DF a regional director of a trade association.

Maternal grandmother - switchboard operator/legal secretary then had her own employment agency.
maternal grandmother - clerk in city bank, Berlitz language school teacher

Paternal grandmother - shopgirl i think when very young then housewife and or cleaner.
Paternal grandfather - car fitter I think (radios etc)

Maternal stepfather - helped run my maternal grandmother's employment agency that also did other work and chauffeuring.
Maternal stepmother - barmaid in pub where she met maternal grandfather (first lot were divorced!) cleaner.

My maternal great grandfather really fascinates me, left school at 12 came to London from Somerset, became a tally man but made enough money to buy a string of houses, was first man in street to have cats ear radio, car etc. his brother wrote a book on working class women (he was working class) in laundries that apparently is in British library.

Paternal grandfather - scientist (quite important/famous in his field)
Paternal grandmother - scientist (unusually for a woman)

Maternal grandfather - landowner, businessman, sportsman (successful old money)
Maternal grandmother - society hostess.

Me - have had a very varied career in academia, science education and now outreach and development for a medical charity. So, promoting and finding funding for research. Not actually moved on much at all - my dad is also an academic and scientist, as is my uncle and my PhD was scientific. My sister works in medical research. We basically seem to have been bred for the lab.

Grandfather:
before the war - dock worker
during the war - ambulance driver
After the war - Teacher

Grandmother:
Before the war - Nursery maid
During the war - Cook in the army
After the war - housewife

My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15 year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.

MF- injured in WW2 effectively SAHD
MM- teacher
FF- bookkeeper in a factory
FM- housewife (how she described herself) and runner but not allowed to compete internationally because her breast would fall off.

MGM-housewife
MGF-doctor
FGM- housewife
FGF- farmer

Paternal grandparents: Village postmaster plus they ran the attached village shop

Maternal grandfather: telephone engineer
Maternal grandmother: industrial chemist

Parents: Journalist and hairdresser

My brother is a carpenter and I work in marketing.

Not sure about the greats but:

Paternal grandmother was a teacher
Paternal grandfather a dentist

Maternal grandmother a nurse
Maternal grandfather in the army then a coal merchant

My mum is a nurse and my dad an IT consultant.

I'm a medical secretary so the medical side has sort of carried on.

Paternal 1GGf: Sea Captain
Paternal 1GGm: Housewife

Paternal 2GGf: Accountant
Paternal 2GGm: Milliner (before marriage)

Paternal GF: Sea Captain
Paternal GM: Surgical Nurse (before marriage and after divorce)

Father: Ship's Pilot
Mother: Secondary School Teacher (before children, and again after empty nest)

Maternal GF: Travelling Salesman
Maternal GM: Clerk

Maternal 1GGF: Farmer
Maternal 1GGM: Farmer's wife

Maternal 2GGF: Chef
Maternal 2GGM: Unsure some sort of menial work (he was from a well off background and left her with seven children and no education)

I was a senior corporate manager until I had children, they are older now and I am looking to return to work. Writing all this down, I notice a real pattern of women in my family demuring into the domestic sphere while there are children in the house. (Not sure I made the right choice and now I wonder if I sleep-walked into it!)

If you are actually doing some sort of study and want us to go back further. I can.

Maternal great grandfather worked for Count Mettinick as private secretary in Luxembourg and various areas/castles round Germany until they lost everything in WW1 and WW2 due to his being dual national German/English (he was interned in a concentration camp in WW1 and died before WW2 but his wife my maternal great grandmother was German. She was brought to England by her son my grandfather before outbreak of WW2 and the Germans when her son collected her from Germany asked her son and his wife "are we going to war with you?". She never worked never had to. Was born in Metz, parents hoteliers.

Great grandparents fathers side no idea at all as didn't known them well, grandmother was from Abergavenny and grandfather i think from Cambridge area but they moved to Hammersmith where my father was born.

Maternal Great grandfather who was a tally man apparently was like Alf Garnett! They were said to be descended from French Jewish Taylors. He looked very Jewish, so did my nana and surname was Paull which meant nana got hired by Jewish people because they assumed she was Jewish and she didn't say otherwise.

Maternal great grandmother married to tally man was illegible daughter of a maid in Ireland. Never worked died sadly young (40?) but helped the poor gave them food parcels, went to see them etc. was so fondly regarded there was a huge procession behind her hearse at her funeral but for some strange reason her DH (the tallyman) had her buried in a mass grave and my nana could never find out and get her remains reinterred.

Me - now legal PA/secretary, have always worked as PA in various areas such as architecture for 7 years and high level government departments as temp for about 2 years. Started off as receptionist/secretary for engineering type company in Croydon and then for oil/gas exploration company in Croydon. From 25 worked in Kensington for publishers etc.

Was always told by nana and mum that typing etc would help me and it has. Wish in a way I'd been to uni as I was virtually Fluent (reading, writing and speaking) at 16.

Maternal Grandfather: dentist
Maternal Grandmother: doctor turned housewife

Paternal Grandfather: unknown
Paternal Grandmother: school dinner lady

Mother: teacher
Father: teacher

Me: teacher...although I was adamant I would never enter the profession :(

Maternal Granddad - RAF.

Maternal Grandma - lots of things, cook in houses, cook in private schools, ammunition factory in the war, local councillor.
Paternal Grandad - Policeman
Paternal Grandma - Housewife

My Granny's parents: housewife & miner
My Grandfather's parents: no idea he left home at 14 no more contact.

Paternal Grandma's parents: mother had 11 children so probably housewife & father policeman.

Paternal Grandfather's parents: his mother died when he was a toddler & his father was a policeman.

We are both in education.

My nannie and step-grandad currently are landlords of a pub, before they moved in 2003 they were stewards of a local social club.

I'm not sure what my Nannie did before she became a barmaid of the first social club she and my step-grandad looked after (that's how they met in the first place).

My step-grandad used to work for the railways, I believe it was for Carriage Wagon Works (correct me if I'm wrong).

My grandad used to work for Rolls Royce, he was a firefighter I think!

My great grandad worked RR too and my great-nanna was a homemaker!

Tiger I personally find this fascinating and apart from my nana's maiden name (which no one has now) I try not to leave in personal stuff, though my case it's relevant.

It's quite sad for me as have a few German relatives a cousin was killed fighting in WW2 (in a tank I think) and my maternal grandfather joined British Army but due to his heritage wasn't allowed a position higher than sergeant but was used due to his fluency in German and French to go into German villages and spy on them. The family also lost everything due to the Nazis in WW1 and WW2 due to GGF being dual national. Quite sad really but more for maternal grandfather who was quite bitter about it.

I also find watching Who Do You Think You Are but reading social history books there's a woman can't think of surname but Gilda is her first name, she's written books on east end working class, I also like British social history of other classes...

I quite like the minutae life was bloody hard back then.

Fascinating! I'm loving reading these...I'm not a troll though as someone suggested....nor am I after your bank details! I just like history!