The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: luckylady on November 11, 2012, 10:30:31 am
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What did your great/grandparents do for a living/hobby and did they pass down their skills/talents through the generations?
My maternal grandfather was a cabinet maker and one of his beautiful pieces stands in my dining room to this day. After the war he was commissioned to make prosthetic limbs for the returning injured soldiers. He passed down the appreciation of all things crafted from wood and the smell of his workshop is one of my favourite childhood memories. My maternal grandmother was a milliner and she taught my mother the skill but unfortunately she only carried it on where she would make her own hat for a special occasion such as my wedding. Although my mother does still have one of my grandmother's original hat blocks.
My paternal grandfather was a farmer and worked the land with horses. He died when my father was 6 years old but somewhere in the genes an instinctive understanding of equines must have been passed down to my daughter. He also used his horses to pull a hearse for funerals (farmers diversified even then!).
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I only knew one of my grandparents, who was a huge influence in my childhood.
farming is in my genes, but not recently. Ancestors apparently took the first sheep from Lincolnshire to New Zealand .... and where does most of our lamb get imported from?!
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My paternal grandmother was able to knit socks in her sleep... Or so I was told. But since she died when I was 4, it wasn't her who taught me - at that age I just started knitting very wonky doll's blankets - but maybe I got some of her "knitting genes", because I still knit all my own socks (not in my sleep, though!).
There must be something about that gene thing. My father would have liked to become a farmer (his father was a cobbler); since money was tight back then, and he didn't want to go down the route of "wanted: farmer's daughter with large farm and no brothers", he became a bookseller with several allotments... And I went into farming (i.e. apprenticeship, uni etc - not that I can get a job now...), and retained my interest in literature.
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My granny was in service as a girl/young woman. My favourite memories are of our visits when she would cook roast lamb and coffee and walnut cake. That along with the a-mazing food made on the premises by my junior school in Lancashire gave me my love of cooking, and hopefully granny's genes have made me a decent cook.
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After my father died I found the correct spelling of his birth name and over one weekend found 14 first cousins who I had never met via the internet. Some flew over from Canada and we all spent the day together.
All the men had jobs that absorbed them in fine detail to the exclusion of other people. My grandfather died in 1938 and was a master presser, my dad and 2 of his brothers were taylors. Of my generation ,three of my cousin are/were taylors, 2 pattern makers and the rest accountants - all the men painted, made furniture or had hobby rooms ( eg. watch repairing).
Both my children will take themselves off to sketch or paint ( like me) and my son is a master goldsmith.
I think the family trait is a preferance for close up hand eye work or maybe just isolation !! Oh - in the next generation we also have 2 professional artists and and a photographer who exhibit internationally.
I have always been sceptical about inheriting artistic traits as I feel we all have the potential to be good at something if we let it consume us and spend hours on it. I can dig great holes !! Maybe I could have been a great javelin thrower too but Dad would not buy me one.
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unsuprisingly i am a 5th generation joiner.
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Grandad was a miner, but a great reader too and kept pigeons and budgies. Dad was a teacher and kept as many animals as he could possibly fit into the house and now fields - fortunately my mum is also quite an animal lover.
Grandma played the piano, as did Gran and Grandpa, and they sang too - I have my Grandpa's copy of the Messiah, marked up by him on the bass line and now by me on the alto.
Gran and Mum were great sewers and knitters and they taught me.
So - I keep animals, am musical; spin, knit and sew; teach and read - all of which I can trace back in my family.
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An ancestor on the male line was an early non-conformist, credited with some influence on the formation of the Quaker movement in England in the 17th century.
I felt suddenly more relaxed with myself when I discovered it was in the genes! Wish I'd known when I was at school and in my early career... ;)
Tailors, weavers and spinners in the ancestry on both sides of the family. Ma taught me to knit and sew. But now that I know I can't help myself being non-conformist and have the courage and confidence to ad lib and go where the mood takes me, I enjoy knitting far more! :D
No known agricultural heritage apart from there being Irish on both sides of the family, but we don't know anything about the families over there and they may or may not have had land-based lives. Ma is sure her side did; she loves digging, weeding and eating potatoes! :D
Love of animals very strongly from the maternal side, especially the maternal grandfather.
Numeracy from both parents.
Dad is a founder member and Fellow of the British Computer Society, so no surprises where my rat race career took me.
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Dad's parents kept chickens and hatched chicks. They also raised rabbits for eating.
Mums' side are gypsies - I have learnt to embroider and cross stitch, make clothes, harvest some amazing 'free' food from foraging and to sink a pint of guinness in seconds from them ;)
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My grandfather on my dads side had a love of horses but he was a steel worker. My grandmother was brought up in Ireland and she had a horse connection. I knew little of my mothers family as she was brought up by her gran due to her mother being ill and dying when mum was 15 Her father was a white collar worker. most of my uncles were steel workers and had birds as a hobby. I always thought I was some kind of throwback with my love of horses until one of my cousins did the Kerr family tree. My fathers family were all baptist and great church goers. All sang in choirs and played an instrument but alas I am not musical. My dad was one of 8 children and we had great family get togethers when I was growing up.
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and to sink a pint of guinness in seconds from them ;)
Ah - that's one thing I didn't get from my parents. They always wondered where their children got the ability to drink more than one glass of wine from.... ;D
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My paternal great-grandfather on my grandmother's side was a market gardener and I believe there was someone into gardening on my paternal grandfather's side as well. MY paternal grandfather had an allotment, my dad was a very keen vegetable gardener (couldn't see the point of growing things that you couldn't eat although he did have some lovely dahlias in latter years) and so am I.
My maternal grandfather was a barber and I used to cut my children's hair and still do so for my OH. On my maternal grandmother's side were people in business. her father had a business which did very well until he was knocked down by a bolting horse and in a coma for three months, during which time his partner swindled him and they ended up very poor. I haven't inherited that gene, not being in the least business minded although my son started his degree in business studies and economics. He was told in his first year that he was the best out of all the first and second year business students, at which point he gave it up and concentrated on economics. :-\
Further back on my maternal grandmother's side was a French Count who escaped to England from the guillotine in the French Revolution. I was always hopeless at French. ;D My maternal grandmother used to crochet and always promised to teach me when I was 15 but by that time her sight was going. I still managed to learn to crochet and knit, then learned to weave.
It is interesting to look back and see what our ancestors did.
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my paternal side is quite interesting and i know much more about it. my family is from the forest of dean, the earliest record ive found is 1215 when a james was given the freedom of the forest, and life wardenship, to be handed down to his son. there is a church near ross that is our burial ground, one day i hope to be buried there. maybe that gene is why im happiest in woodland (and not on beaches...)
my maternal side is much less clear, i know mother was born in a caravan as was her mother as was her mother, roma. my maternal grandad was a joiner as was his father etc for 3 gen. i spent alot of time there as a child and would wake up to the swoosh sound of the plane as grandad smoothed a table and finished another piece. i know he was well respected,but due to religious differences when he died, my cousin got given all his tools. that guts me now, particularly as i know he has let them rot under a tarp cos hes a plumber. all i managed to salvage from my grandads workshop, were some detailed plans of sash windows. i now restore sash windows as my buisness and those plans are why.
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Some really interesting stuff here.
I have no family records or knowledge of ancestors prior to just 2 generations ( my grandparents). Thus I find it facinating how far some of you can trace things.
By contrast the OH can go a very long way back in Norman/English history and even has a coat of arms. One of her relatives murdered Thomas Becket (< 1200 I think).
Hope she does not include "murder" as one of her ancestral skills passed down.
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i managed to salvage from my grandads workshop, were some detailed plans of sash windows. i now restore sash windows as my buisness and those plans are why.
Thats lovely ditw - inspired by your grandad his skills live on and you clearly get such pleasure from working with wood. :)
Hope she does not include "murder" as one of her ancestral skills passed down.
;D ;D ;D
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Lol MAK :D
One side of my family can be traced fairly well. The other side disappears quickly the wrong side of the blanket in South Yorkshire slums. I don't doubt they were feisty survivors, I just don't know about them. I wish I did but they weren't the sort of people to appear in official records.
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My family has found records of ancestors of ours being taken into the workhouse. These sorts of local records don't make it onto the Salt Lake City databases, but are still there if you are able to spend long hours over many weekends poring over the actual old Church records and the like. Mum and Dad enjoyed this type of research very much; as well as the entry to the workhouse, they also found the next part of the story as one of the brothers was listed as an 'underpuddler's mate' in a later note. So clearly, he'd found work, which was great. Rather lowly work though - the puddler stirred the molten iron; in modern parlance we would think the underpuddler a subordinate of his, and the underpuddler's mate an assistant to that. But we suspect there was some stirring or other action that had to occur below the surface, which was the underpuddler's job, and clearly this was a two-man operation, hence his need for a mate.
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My grandfathers were a draftsman and a plumber repsectiveley, grandmothers a nurse and a seamstress. I have inhereted none of those skills...prior to that nobody knows, my paternal grandfather was of german extraction, his dad burned all records after the outbreak of WWI, paternal grandmother was an Irish immgrant and for some reason her fathers past was shady, both sets of grandparents grew up in the rougher pars of salford and I dont think any records were kept....
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Maternal grandad grew up in Acton London , but was Irish and came over as a toddler in the early 1880's and i have no idea about any of the Russell family . He went in the army as a drummer boy and was in the military there after .
Nan Russell was a nurse in ww1 .
Paternal gd was a stoker boiler man and then a bus conducter , Nan Clarke was a clippie .
Her mum , little nan as i new her , was a seemstress and later , after her husband died in 1942 , lived in kent with her brother , and grew and sold flowers .
Her parents were seemstresses too . She was a Hargrave by marriage but her side , Nevitt , came from Lancashire area and i think they were agricultural labourers .
Grandads lot came from Stevenage area and his gd was a miller there .
So bits and bobs have come down sort of .
Wish i knew more about them .
My aunt , by marriage , was German and was in the Hitler youth . Pictures of her shaking hands with the man himself . But she was lovely , like a second mum to me when i was a kid .
They are all gone now , including parents , and due to head injury , the memories of them are all mixed up or gone , lost like tears in rain , so sad , i miss them so much .
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both sides of my family come from the eastend. All were dockers and heavily involved in the labour movement. I guess all I inherited from them were the classic docker traits of being bolshy, workshy and the ability to pilfer anything that isn't nailed down. If it is nailed down, we take the nail as well.
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both sides of my family come from the eastend. All were dockers and heavily involved in the labour movement. I guess all I inherited from them were the classic docker traits of being bolshy, workshy and the ability to pilfer anything that isn't nailed down. If it is nailed down, we take the nail as well.
Oh that made me giggle! My Dad is East End too! A member of his family was involved in a bit of light pilfering (Buster Edwards was his name...) I think People of the East End are some of the most hardworking I know though :)
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I have traced my fathers side way back to when the family fought for a Norman Duke in some local dispute , he was so greatful he gave them a large estate , and there is still a village called Ault on the north coast of France. Dads side had a long millitary history , His father was RSM with the Staffordshires and served in the Boar War and WW1, Dad was In 3 Commando, Mums side were Master bakers and had the first steam bakery in Bridgenorth.
Some of you might have a sample of my great uncles handwriting , he was a director of Armitage Ware and the handwritten logo was his work. My great aunt Grace was seamstress to Mrs Copleland ( Spode Copeland) at Trellissick House.
None of their skills have been passed to me .