My ancestors were hucksters according to the census. That sounds negative to me. And, when I check the dictionary, it infers that the seller is dishonest. So, what does that tell me about my ancestors? Well, not a whole lot.
I imagined my first generation ancestors selling wares as a peddler out of carts and it was not so. They rented booths at the local markets and sold fruits and seafood from stalls. Historically, huckster was the term used for any type of vendor. The picture in my mind and the reality of their situation were very distinct.
We make assumptions based on our knowledge. That knowledge includes a frame of time in which we've lived and or time periods that we've studied. We tend to make these assumptions when we discover our ancestors professions.
Another ancestor was a stonecutter. My grandfather and I assumed that he could have carved names and dates on gravestones. When I got to the town he lived in, I saw that many of the buildings were constructed from stone. I discovered that there were several active quarries in the immediate area when he lived there. He didn't carve headstones, he worked at the quarry carving stone from the hillside. He was Fred Flintstone!
Yet another was listed as a Seaman for the British navy as well as in the Baltimore directory of 1833. Seaman turns out to be a rather broad term. When was in the British navy, he was made Quarter Gunner aboard the Hyacinth. So, yes, he was a seaman but more specifically a gunner. NB: This ship bombed the castle fortifications in Nerja, Spain in May of 1812. He was the quarter gunner on that ship at that time. I have been to those ruins and now I find out that my family participated in their destruction.
It takes a bit of research to figure out what is behind that short description of our ancestor’s professions. City directories have been a great source of information about the time and the place my ancestors lived there. While we can’t travel, do some virtual tourism on Google maps and locate local museums and libraries with information to expand your knowledge of old professions.
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