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?

Oh, the only greatgrandparent whose job I know was a maternal GGF, who was also a carpenter.

Paternal grandmother - SAHM
Paternal grandfather - music teacher
Maternal grandmother - SAHM
Maternal grandfather - coalminer
Father - academic
Mother - headteacher
Me - librarian and local government worker
DH - civil engineer

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

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*

definitely agree. I hated history at school (I was into science/maths) but I really started to get interested in social history when I started to research my family tree. Its always fascinated me how 2 people born in different parts of the country could meet up & marry: if that apparently random series of events hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here today.

My answers to the OP:

PFGF: coal miner then soldier (22 years) then colliery policeman
PFGM: nanny
PMGF: stone mason who worked on several London churches and also Liverpool cathedral
PMGM: housekeeper
MFGF: foreman in a steel mill
MFGM: domestic servant
MMGF: labourer. I really feel sorry for this family. He came from a long line of shoemakers in Kent & moved to an industrial town in the NE to work in the chemical factory. There, he developed the cancer that killed him at 49 years old, leaving 7 children including 4-yr old twins.
MMGM: domestic servant

in all cases the females gave up work when they married.

I'm a full time carer for my disabled children.
MGM - cleaner
MGF - tree surgeon/groundsman

MGGP both farmers ON GM side
Soldier and seamstress on GF side

PGF - hotelier
PGM - SAHM

PGGP both farmers on GF side
On GM side also farmers but also very successful game dealers

Paternal Grandfather- Doctor in the Army
Paternal Grandmother- School Headteacher

Maternal Grandfather- Government Officer
Maternal Grandmother- Housewife

And yes, I'm a Visual Artist!

paternal
ggf- civil servant
ggm- sahm
Gf- publican
Gm- sahm

Maternal
Ggf- soldier
Ggm- sahm
Gf- unknown
Gm- cleaner

Both my parents went to university

I'm a sahm

Father's side - farmers for as long as anyone can remember. Probably were serfs to start with. Uncle inherited family farm.

Father - army, retired with the rank of captain, then university to study.economics, worked in tourism till retirement.

Mother's side -paternal, Austrian army officers for several generations, women army wives. Mother's father a tailor after leaving the army at the end of WW2.

Maternal - navy, women ran a hotel for two or three generations until it was nationalised. Grandmother SAHM after that point.

Mother - started off as an artist, then hotel receptionist after divorce and with two small children to support, ran holiday rentals business until her death a year and a half ago.

Siblings and yours truly, variously over the years (three of us in total):

chef, bar staff, freelance writer , actor, hospital orderly, naval engineering, , librarian, care worker, banking, child care, wheeler-dealer, SAHP.

More than one of these has been done by more than one of us!

If you can spot and rhyme or reason to it, good luck to you...

Agricultural workers and housewives. Bloody peasants

Very bloody clever peasants,though. They all were self taught, intelligent, and widely read. Family lore has it that we are descended from an illegitimate sprig of a very wealthy,aristocratic family, who occasionally swooped in to dispense books and largesse, thus accounting for my paternal great grandmother having a rock solid sense of superiority, and speaking perfect RP. This despite her leaving school at 12, and spending the rest of her life raising children in a prefab, and feeding them poached pheasants.

My maternal grandfather - bricklayer
My maternal grandmother - SAHM, then cleaning posh folks' houses

My maternal grandfather - power station foreman
My maternal grandmother -mill worker then SAHM

My father - production line operator at factory making the car whose name rhymes with pasta.
My mother - hospital cleaner

DH's parents were both pharmacists. No idea about his grandparents.

Both my grandmas worked as cleaners. One grandad was a joiner, the other worked in a clothing factory.

Maternal GM. in service then SAHM
Maternal GF. Dance hall manager then farmer
Paternal GM. Teacher
Paternal GF. Soldier, farmer

Me Work in admin

5th generation farmer here.

Paternal grandmother--housewife/carer for family members
Paternal grandfather--soldier in the army and then milkman

Maternal grandmother--housewife (6 kids)
Maternal grandfather--sailor and then worked in a builders merchants.

Not sure about maternal great grandparents but paternal great grandfather was an architect.

Maternal grandmother - model then housewife
Maternal grandfather - doctor

Paternal grandmother - headmistress
Paternal grandfather - doctor

Maternal great grandfather - doctor
Maternal great grandmother - housewife

I run a healthcare buisness

Paternal Grandfather- manager of the local water treatment works, as was his father.
Paternal Grandmother - Seamstress then SAHM
I vaguely remember my Paternal Great Grandmother as a very old lady who lived in a bed in my Grandma's front room. As a small child I thought she was the Grandma in Little Red Riding Hood!

Maternal Grandfather was a stretcher bearer in WW1 then a Labour Party secretary/agent? He was also a magistrate and something to do with the Workers' Educational Association (WEA) He sounds like a very interesting man and I wish I had talked to him as an adult, he died when I was about 8.
Maternal Grandmother - Weaver then SAHM

Paternal Grandfather - civil engineer
Paternal Grandmother - house wife
Paternal Great Grandfather - landowner
Paternal Great Grandmother - house wife

Maternal Grandmother - housewife
Maternal Grandfather - chief constable
Maternal Great Grandmother - daughter of a landowner
Maternal Great Grandfather - stable boy (ran away with his employers daughter

Great thread! Really interesting to see the change in careers through generations.

PGM: Civil servant, then teaching assistant
PGF: Telephone engineer
F: Financial Mgmt

MGM: Nurse, then shop assistant
PGM: Bus driver
M: Local authority worker

Going back further my family were mainly farm labourers or miners. Being able to go to grammar school was a huge part in my family's social mobility.

Me: First generation to go to university. Now in head office management for a multi-national business.

Miller & maid.
Milkman & housewife.

This thread is fascinating- it's certainly put paid to the stereotype that mothers working is a 'recent' thing!
Me?
MGM-secretary and activist, MGF, aircraft draughtsman among other things, PGM sahm/ dairy worker, PGF bank clerk. Before that, millworkers, farmworkers, shopkeepers.

Love things like this.

Great grandmother (maternal) seamstress
Great grandfather (m) miner
Great grandmother (paternal) housewife
Great grandfather (p) miner

Grandfather (m) chief executive of a local authority
Grandmother (m) bank cashier

Grandfather (p) miner
Grandmother (p) housewife

Mother housewife
Father senior manager (telecommunications company)

I am a company director

Me

My dad's mum and dad and my mums dad were all in the Army. Pre war days I believe. My mum's mum was a hairdresser and had her own salon. My dad's dad then was a mechanic when he left the army.

I'm a teacher

My paternal grandfather was a criminal and all round chancer oh and army deserter!

My paternal grandmother worked in a shop.

My maternal grandfather worked with glass, he made it, blew it, spun it, cut it and sold it.

My maternal grandmother did something administrative in the town hall for the last couple of decades of her working life. Before that she worked in another office doing something secretarial and as a younger woman she worked in a biscuit tin factory, painting the pretty pictures on the boxes.

I think this is yet another class thread.

Paternal grandad - draughtsman
Paternal grandma - teaching assistant until she got married
Maternal grandfather artist and potter and teacher
Maternal granny was a nurse.