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?

The great great greats: big farmers, peasant farmers, miner, housewives.

The greats: farmers with bigger farms, farmers wives, soldier, poor house principal, failed nun.

Grandparents: businessman, nurses, GP.

Maternel GF: engineer, GM: stay at home parent (she had a brain tumour and was in and out of hospital for much of my mum's childhood)

Paternal GPs: no idea

Mother: secondary school teacher
Father: consultant in the banking industry

Me: economist
Sibling: former teacher, now a published author (of teaching books)

Interesting thread btw violet I must ask my dad - his parents passed away when I was still a baby so I never knew them, and he doesn't talk about them.

Photographer, teacher, accountant, solicitors' clerk.

Cut me and I bleed middle class ink.

Lovely little slice of history

Both my grandfathers were doctors. One in rural England and the other in a city in France. He also served in the army as a medic in the Second World War. He was in Japan.

English grandmother was far too upper class to have a job .
French grandmother was a nurse. She trained in the war. Hardly any of her peers lived to the end of their training.

I don't really know about the greats. I'd love to though.

My great great grandfather on French grandfather's side was a clog maker in a little village. He wife ran the absinthe bar upstairs over his workshop. We still have some of the absinthe glasses.

Paternal GGF and GF: Director and owner of large manufacturing company. But they really didn't actually have to work each day
Paternal GGM and GM: lady of leisure

Maternal GGF: barrister
Maternal GGM: Lady of leisure

Maternal GF: Headmaster
Maternal GM: headmistress
(Although they both had more interesting lives than that suggests)

My parents broke the mould: my father is an engineer and my mother was a dancer. But my father didn't have to earn an income for a lot of his life.

My siblings and cousins are all professionals in quite niche areas. We're downwardly mobile, I suppose, with the decline of large manufacturing industries in the UK. So my generation all have to earn our incomes.

Adopted paternal grandfather: docker
Adopted paternal grandmother: housewife, then factory worker during the war

Adopted maternal grandfather: managing director of a shipping firm
Adopted maternal grandmother: housewife

Birth paternal grandfather: musician

I don't know about the rest!

I am a writer/editor.

This is a great thread!

Maternal grandmother: nurse
Maternal grandfather: miner

Paternal grandfather: engineer
Paternal grandmother: didn't work after having kids but was an anti-aircraft gunner in WW2

Wow, your GM an anti-aircraft gunner! One of my GFs taught them in the ME fighting Rommel - in between running the family firm, and Churchill 's office. I wonder if he commanded your GM? #smallworld

Maternal grandmother - nurse
Maternal grandfather - something to do with insurance. Think he ended up fairly senior.

Paternal grandmother - Housewife
Paternal grandfather - Book keeper / Clerk (not sure what the title was, but he dealt with accounts for a ship building company).

Maternal gf: plumber / gasman (lit the gas street lights, shovelled coal to create coal gas)
Maternal gm: live in maid then housewife

Paternal gf: Headteacher of primary school
Maternal gm: teacher

Me: transport planning consultant.

Maternal Grandfather: Lawyer, business owner
Maternal Grandmother: SAHM

Paternal Grandfather: Trustafarian and tried ineffectively many trades (pretty much squandered an enormous fortune)
Maternal Grandmother: SAHM

Paternal grandmother- clippy on the buses.
Paternal grandfather- factory work.
Maternal grandmother- SAHM.
Maternal grandfather- farmer.

My Grandparents were boring but my great grandparents are brilliant.

Maternal Grandmother: Housewife/Domestic Duties
Maternal Grandfather: Lazy Idle Layabout/Drunkard/Swindler

Paternal Grandmother: Housewife/Domestic Duties
Paternal Grandfather: Rullyman.

My Grt Grandparents on one side were a Squire/Landowner and his wife a Lady at birth (so lived off her own means but lost her title because she married 'beneath' her) & Apple Orchard Owner/Cider Maker and his wife was a Herbalist/Midwife/Medicine lady.

My great grandparents on the other side: Master Carpenter and his wife a Charity Poorhouse Patron & Landowner/Agricultural Labourer and Housewife.

I love family history. I have tonnes of stuff for my family.

"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?"

It's where you come from tigermoll. It's where your parents come from and where theirs come from. I think it can help you understand yourself.
I also think it's not that easy to identify someone with this kind of information (unless your family did something very unusual) and what if someone did? What could they possibly do with the information that your grandfather worked in a factory or whatever.

SurelyYoureJokingMrFeynman Sat 18-Jun-16 09:44:23
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.

I sgree with this. While I've not commented on individual posts, I've really enjoyed reading them. I like to wonder about the life stories these posts hint at; how did people meet, how their jobs affected their lives, etc.

Sometimes the life stories of individuals can be more interesting than the books about the big, hig-level events (although I like reading that sort of thing too).

Maternal grandmother & grandfather were business owners - they ran a grocers and milk round in Archway to begin with and then owned and ran a hotel. They also had BTL properties. So self employed, I suppose!

My paternal grandmother was a radiographer, and my paternal grandfather was an electrical engineer on the railways.

My parents were a civil servant and a risk adviser in the City.

I'm a freehold property manager, DH is an accountant.

Paternal Line
GF Engineer, GM Housewife
Dad Garage owner/ 2nd hand car sales

Maternal Line
GM Housewife/boutique owner GF Businessman
Mum Teacher

Me: HR Consultant!

Maternal grandfather was a journalist
Maternal grandmother - kept woman
Paternal grandfather - docker in Royal Albert Docks, London
paternal grandmother - cleaner

Paternal GF: ended up as an accountant after starting as an errand boy aged 14. Was in the artillery in WW2 in the far east.
GM: I don't actually know. I think she might have been at home. I know she was a Guide leader because that's how she met my Scout GF.

Maternal GF: telephone exchange supervisor (was in REME in WW2 in Italy)
GM: shop worker

Paternal GF - Worked for paint company
Paternal GM - pre kids - not sure
After kids - Housewife

Maternal GF - Policeman
Maternal GM - pre kids - In service in a big house
Post kids - housewife

Oh and maternal great great grandfather was a judge and the Under Sheriff of London.

Maternal Grandfather: started as a "Pearl man" selling insurance door to door and progressed to being Branch Manager of a Pearl office.

Maternal Grandmother: Secretary before marriage. Housewife after marriage.

Paternal Grandfather: Archdeacon.

Paternal Grandmother: Archdeacon's wife!

Father: Teacher.

Mother: Nurse.

My GPs were all quite old by the time I was born so I never met my great grandparents, or really knew much about them. I seem to remember my dad telling me that his grandad was a farmer though.

Maternal GF - Coalminer
Maternal GM - A 'Mrs Patmore' Head Cook for a Countess
Paternal GF - Builder/Bricklayer
Paternal GM - SAHM

Me - I work in the food industry (alot to thank GM for she taught me a great deal!)

Mat. GF - a carpenter
Mat. GM - a nurse

Pat. GF - a military police
Pat GM - a psychiatric nurse

DM - a journalist
DF - IT professional

Me - nothing (although a degree in a humanistic field)