General FH and occupation questions

[KimberleyW]

Hey,

This is going to sound like a stupid question i'm sure.
I'm looking through my direct ancestors to see if i can find anything really interesting about them,
I have distant relatives that i have spoken to that have found some really interesting people in their lines, currently i'm having no luck.

My family seems completely full of miners and labourers.
My question is, is there any way to find out which mines my relatives may have worked at, and if they are labourers, does that mean they owned their own land, or did they just work on someone elses farmland? if they owned their own, is there any way to find out where their land may have been?

I also have one line of my family that has a rumour about being descended from gypsies. I have no proof currently, the furthest i've gone back is to find a relative that fought in Egypt in 1801, but we cant find any further relations for him. I believe if the next generation up is where the gypsy rumour comes from, they could have travelled around. I've tried to contact the church where i believe he was baptised, but they dont seem to have any records of a baptism, and therefore i cant track his parents. Has anyone else got any suggestions to get further back on this line?

Sorry for rambling on!

[philipsearching]

If people are described as labourers they worked for other people (farmers, builders etc). 

You are very unlikely to find mine records listing names (except for mine disasters), but if you have the dates and locations of where miners lived it may be possible to discover which mines were being worked locally at the time.  Local histories, or more general social history, would give a sense of the conditions your ancestors lived in.

It can be exciting to find an ancestor who did something special, but most of our ancestors were the unsung heroes who lived through hard times, raised their families, and made their small contributions to the economy and development of the nation.

All the best
Philip

[youngtug]

Regarding terms used to describe occupations, this is worth a read; http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~matthew/Papers/Woollard_1881Classifications_no%20illustration.pdf

[KimberleyW]

Thanks for the help, thats what i feared

Oh well, they may not be my direct decendants exactly but i know that i have some interesting stories in the family at least.
To be honest i've only really started looking, but i thought if i firstly stick to the family members i knew more about, i'd be able to get a sense of what i'm looking for. No such luck unfortunately!

Anyone have any ideas about the gypsy line?

[groom]

Why not post on the relevant county board so that people can help? Give any name, dates etc and I'm sure someone will be able to either find them or offer advice.

Most of my ancestors are labourers as well!

[KimberleyW]

Why not post on the relevant county board so that people can help? Give any name, dates etc and I'm sure someone will be able to either find them or offer advice.

Most of my ancestors are labourers as well!

Sorry. Fairly new here. Didn't know there was one. Haha. will do that aswell