Occupations » General Resources

A Collection of Workers' Memorials

Listing of Workers' memorials by state from the AFL-CIO.

A Guide to Business Records in the Virginia State Library and Archives

A book by Conley L. Edwards.

Ancestry.com - Message Boards - Occupations

Between a Rock and a Hard Place - A History of American Sweatshops 1820-Present

A virtual exhibition from the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History.

Blacksmiths Index - A Genealogical Index of Blacksmiths and Related Occupations

Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, shipwrights, wheelwrights, goldsmiths, copper, brass, iron workers, etc. Some with photos.

Colonial Occupations

Colonial Occupations

Colonial Occupations

Colonial Occupations and Their Current Title

Credit Rating Guides As A Genealogical Resource

Describes the availability and use of credit rating books as a genealogical resource.

Deciphering Old Handwriting

Dictionary of Ancient Occupations and Trades, Ranks, Offices, and Titles

A suite of pages in dictionary format devoted to definitions of occupational terms likely to be encountered in the course of genealogical research.

Family Tree Connection - Employment Records

Search the listings for free, view full details with a fee-based subscription.

Family Tree Researcher: Dictionary of Old Occupations

By Jane Hewitt

Familyrelatives.com - Trade Directories for Scotland $

A collection of 100 Volumes of Scottish Trade Directories covering 185 years dating back from 1825 to the early part of the 19th Century during the growing influence of the Industrial Revolution and the British Empire. Covers major cities and counties including Edinburgh which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe which continued well into the 19th Century.

Findmypast $

Findmypast has searchable indexes; database results and some digitized images are available with a fee-based subscription. Join Findmypast and you

Five Thousand Ways to Earn a Living

A list of trades and professions taken from British census records and parish records.
[The original link is broken. This link points to an archived copy on the Wayback Machine]

GenealogyMagazine.com - Surnames Derived From English Occupations

Our family did not consciously choose our family names, writes Myra Vanderpool Gormley. Hereditary surnames came into being primarily because the eternal tax collectors needed a way to identify people.

Hunter's Diseases of Occupations

A book by Peter J. Baxter.

Index of Imperial Russian Occupational Terms

In order to find and use specific types of Russian records, resarchers need to be able to identify and understand some key terms in the Russian language. This glossary contains terms relating to occupations, trades and professions in Imperial Russia, transliterated from Russian, along with their English translations. Theterms included here are those that you are likely to find in Russian genealogical sources.