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13 page PDF research guide includes:
Guide for Beyond the Plow: Decoding Ancestral Occupations in the 1880 Census
A cooper's entry in the 1880 census runs four words: name, age, occupation, nothing more. The barrels he built for a neighbor's cider crop show up in a merchant's running account instead. The creek rights that let him set up his shop sit in a deed book three shelves over. A woman's entry reading only "Keeping House" hides a trade of her own the same way, one you have to chase through probate inventories and agricultural schedules to name. This companion moves through twenty-five 1880 occupation titles with the records each one is likely to generate, a decoder for the labor hidden inside "Keeping House," and a thirteen-state repository guide for tracking down what the census left out.
What's Inside
- Ancestor Occupation Worksheet with a census entry identification block, occupation analysis prompts, and a research leads log
- 1880 Occupation Reference Guide covering twenty-five occupational titles common to Appalachian mountain counties, with what each trade meant and the records it generated
- Women's Labor Decoder covering seven categories of work hidden behind "Keeping House," from textile production and midwifery to boardinghouse keeping and dressmaking, plus a research worksheet
- Records by Occupation Type reference mapping ten occupation categories to the records they generated and where to find them, plus an occupation research tracker
- Thirteen-state Repository & Access Guide, plus the Library of Congress, for locating merchant, trade, and licensing records by state
- Two ruled notes pages