RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: StevieSteve on Monday 16 January 17 18:38 GMT (UK)
-
One of the possibly underused resources on Rootschat is the Reference Library found in the brown panel at the bottom of the page, specifically the Lexicon.
Boy, do I have to have a re-look at my dressmakers, the 12th most common occupation in my database!!
-
;D
I watched WDYTYA Alex Kingston over the weekend. One of her widowed ancestors was a boarding house keeper with several dressmakers living at the address, neighbouring properties having a similar pattern of occupation. The researchers confirmed that these houses were brothels of sorts.
I also have a few dressmakers, some are definitely suspicious!
-
I just want to cry .......
No wealth, land or inheritances ..... but I do have some dressmakers.
;D ;D ;D
-
Well........I've never looked at the brown panel properly before and now I wish I hadn't, I too saw the WDYTYA programme with 'dressmakers', oh dear lots of dressmakers & seamstresses in my family tree, but they wouldn't be would they? no, just hard working ladies who sewed for a living, I'm sure...please :o :o :o
But it makes you think doesn't it ;D ;D ;D
Patty
-
I'm sure quite a lot of 'dressmakers' and 'seamstresses' hardly sewed at all ;) :D but someone had to be making all the clothes and adjusting them to fit or adapting worn adult clothes into children's garments! People had far fewer clothes than we do today but there weren't stores full of affordable ready to wear items.
Don't worry Great Great Aunt Mary, I'll defend your honour! ;D
-
It is well known that dressmaker was often used by ladies of the night ;D I have a dressmaker over five decades but she was married, her Daughter was a seamstress too....you take things at face value based on the evidence :D
Carol
-
errr... weren't Milliners almost in the same category? I've got dressmakers and milliners, so ....gulp... who am I?
-
Have to say this thread has been very amusing indeed but fascinating ;D
I suspect there may be a surge in DNA kits from 23andMe ???
Maybe the reason some people's DNA results don't seem to tally :-\ ::)
Annie
-
errr... weren't Milliners almost in the same category? I've got dressmakers and milliners, so ....gulp... who am I?
Sooo funny TY, brings the acronym home......WDYTYA ??? ;D
Annie
-
Well, I might not be a sonofa... but not so sure about being a 1stcousin3timesremovedofa...
And while I might defend the reputation of relations from East Harting or Keston to the hilt, I'll be a bit more cautious of the ones from Kings Cross, Southwark and the like
-
My mother actually WAS a dressmaker; because she was disabled, it was thought that a mostly sitting down job was all she could do. She trained as a court dressmaker, and made gowns and undies for minor royalty, and celebs like Fanny Craddock, Bebe Daniels, Kathleen Ferrier, etc.
And never a whiff of scandal about my mother, but not so for some of her customers ! :o
-
A relative of Jane Austen was a milliner. It was in a radio programme about her that I first learned of the connection with ladies of the night. I think it was said in the programme that unemployed milliners could fall into prostitution. So might any unemployed young woman at the time.
JA's relative went to India as a kind of mail-order bride for a British officer. She had an affair with the famous Clive of India and had a daughter. Clive was godfather to child. The daughter married a French aristocrat. He was executed during the French Revolution.
-
I have one who was a shirt-maker! Do you think she called herself that to attract male custom??
Maybe she was genuine ;D ;D ;D
-
I suppose that both millinery and dressmaking, realistically, could be started with a very small outlay of money, and were suited to working from home.
They also by working from home avoided having to work in some sort of factory or mill, too, probably, so were seen as perhaps a little more genteel than that sort of work, possibly? At least in their own eyes.
I noticed that very few of my family tree seem to have been employed as domestic servants - but then we always were a stroppy lot, and probably wouldn't have lasted long in that kind of job.
-Actually, the milliners I've found in my wider family history worked with sisters who were dressmakers, and it seemed to be more than one generation. Not sure if that makes it a worse or better idea!!
-
Previous post on the same topic here:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=292299.0
Carol
-
This 'problem' is so well known, that it also crops up in Terry Pratchett's Disc world books :)
Bob
-
In 1861 the occupations sometimes appeared together.
Have a look at RG9/2948 ed22 fol88 pg31.
-
This 'problem' is so well known, that it also crops up in Terry Pratchett's Disc world books :)
Bob
Ah yes! The Ankh-Morpork Seamstresses Guild!
The seamstresses in the Seamstresses' Guild are, in the politically-correct language of the modern Ankh-Morpork, ladies of negotiable affection, ladies whose company and loving attention, crudely put, could be hired for a night.
Motto: NIL VOLVPTI, SINE LVCRE ("No Pleasure Without Pay")
-
This could explain why London's Gropec*nt Lane was renamed Threadneedle Street!
Philip
ps - for any people worried about what their ancestors got up to:
My late father was illegitimate.
Several years after he died, my mother married a highly respectable man from a solid Quaker family.
I am the son of a bastard and a Hoare!
-
Ah yes! The Ankh-Morpork Seamstresses Guild!
Definition:
A lady of negotiable affection. One who might provide a certain intimate service for reasonable price, and is unlikely to have any use for a needle and thread, unless that's the way the client likes it.
The unwary visitor to Ankh-Morpork is advised that Sandra Battye is also a Seamstress, albeit of a very rare and specialised sort. As sometimes all a man wants is to gain a valuable service from a woman that makes life feel so much better afterwards (such as having the holes in his socks darned against a mushroom), it should be advised here that it is unwise to presume.
http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Seamstress
But wherever there are men who are away from the regular society of women, who get.... you know... urges of the sort which only a woman possessed of a range of specifically female skills can satisfy, Sandra Battye will not be short of a living. For men with the urge and the powerful longing, say for a shirt with all its buttons on, or socks with working heels and no holes in the toes, it can be just as confusing and unhelpful to look for a seamstress and, well, be directed to the wrong sort. As Dr. Mossy Lawn once remarked, some people who are looking for a massage really DO only want a massage. Or in this instance, a shirt with all the buttons in the right places.
In these instances, Sandra has a working understanding with the Seamstresses that they will send the victims of misunderstanding down the street to the correct sort of Seamstress, according to stated need and purpose. In fact, Sandra often ends up earning more money doing proper needlework, much to Rosie's chagrin.
http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sandra_Battye
I think Terry Pratchett knew his social history very well ! :)
Bob
-
One of the possibly underused resources on Rootschat is the Reference Library found in the brown panel at the bottom of the page, specifically the Lexicon.
You can find more topics (and this one!) on Seamstresses, in the Reference Library: Lexicon, here
http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/reflib-lexicon.php?letter=S
Dressmaker and Milliner will also point you to the above page.
... and have a look under 'V', too: Victorian morality
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,270493
Bob
-
as they say --- 'never view a book by its cover'
but I always read the back of the book cover before I buy it.... :)
and the fact is ... We know nothing really about the life they were leading and attempting to survive or at least 'get through'
I still love em including my 2nd great gran Margaret Robertson with all her various kids born when OH was at Sea or dead???? bless her .... ha ha ha.....
xin
-
It's what makes Family History all the more interesting...they were tough times for many and the alternative was probably the workhouse :-\
Carol
-
A distant relation (not really related) had a very nuclear family. One of his daughters went on an extended tour of the US in the mid 90s. When asked how she supported herself during that time, she would say that she worked as a "Street Stewardess".
Regards
Chas
-
"One of the possibly underused resources on Rootschat is the Reference Library found in the brown panel at the bottom of the page, specifically the Lexicon."
Where is it? ??? :-[ :-\
-
"One of the possibly underused resources on Rootschat is the Reference Library found in the brown panel at the bottom of the page, specifically the Lexicon."
Where is it? ??? :-[ :-\
Scroll down to the bottom of any RootsChat page.
There's a large dark-brown box at the bottom, with all sorts of useful links.
One of these is "Reference Library" ;D
-
Ah, yes - it looks black on my computer so in looking for brown I went blind. Thank you ;D
-
One of the possibly underused resources on Rootschat is the Reference Library found in the brown panel at the bottom of the page, specifically the Lexicon.
Boy, do I have to have a re-look at my dressmakers, the 12th most common occupation in my database!!
I never noticed this until you mentioned!
Carol