Hello my genealogical friends and welcome back to the blog! I hope as always, I am finding you well in your research projects. Maybe even applying some of the techniques detailed last week. If you have not yet caught up on previous blogs, please take a moment to go back and take a peek. For today’s topic I hope to focus our attention on occupational records. Though we have covered how different types of records can help us round out our ancestors’ stories, you may still be unaware of what occupational records are or how to obtain them. By the end of this blog, I hope that you will be able to confidently answer both of these questions.
Before we dive into how to find occupational records, I think it is important to have a grasp on what they are and might entail. As you might expect, occupational records detail work of individuals, and businesses and their personal information. However, it also includes such things as farming during eras of slavery, as well as government agencies that employee people, including those in the military. Records within this category might include: payroll, company newsletters, memberships in trade organizations, licenses, etc. As you search for these records you might find that the information is not always laid out to you directly. Sometimes lists such as payroll or employee records will directly state what job it was that your ancestor preformed, but other times additional research may need to be done so you can make an educated guess on what particular position they may have worked.
Now that you have a healthy handle on what sort of documentation you should expect to find when searching for occupational records you might want to know how you can get started finding these things. As is always the case with record hunting now-a-days it is important to note what kind of job records were created, could have survived, and are currently accessible. Remember that things are slowly becoming digitalized so you may have to take your search to record offices in relation to your ancestor’s geographical situation. Depending on previous research you have done to figure out what sort of industry your ancestor may have worked in your steps towards obtaining records may look different. For those of you looking for agricultural industry records I highly recommend Family Search and Ancestry who have compiled slave schedules. For Business records, many older records can be found in university, regional/private or public archives. If you are instead looking for information of ancestors that may have worked for the federal government, I would recommend looking through the National Archives or requesting copies of personnel folders.
From what we have covered today I hope that you are now ready and prepared to answer someone if they ask you what occupational records are, and feel confident that you can execute the first step of finding one of these records. As always, if we as genealogists take the time to find these records our ancestors stories become more fully and we can understand better their life, and how it may have ultimately affected our own circumstances. If you find yourself still confused on where to start or have other questions concerning this topic or others, please take a look at my longer form webinars where I explain these issues more in-depth. If you have other questions not yet answered by any of my content, please feel free to reach out to me directly using the contact information found at the top of this same website. Happy researching!
Winona Laird “The Genealogy Granny” https://genealogyeducationcenter.com
