One of the most exciting things about researching the ancestral past is discovering what each family did for a living. I love watching sons and grandsons taking up the patriarch's profession. I may even later discover that the patriarch of a particular decade had actually followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps.
Take the McKernan family, for instance. The first Irish immigrant on that tree found work on the growing American railroad system. He paved the way for subsequent generations to follow. I had intended to list them all, for you. The men and the women. But it turns out that there are just way too many for me to even keep track of. (Get it? ... track... as in railroad. Ha Ha). Many of them still ride those rails today, making their great great great great grandfather very proud, I'm sure. In fact, one of them writes a blog about his very interesting experiences working as a conductor for the line that runs between New York and Connecticut. It's called DERAILED, and I highly recommend it.
The Owings family passed the family store down through several branches throughout the 1800s. Through time, and tax records, I've watched that little corner shop become a home, with a storefront. As the building still stands today, I can view it on a Google Map, and still see the sections of the home that were added on in two separate time frames. I know from my grandmother's memoirs, and a century of census records, which sons and grandsons took the deed, and who just put in their time before heading off to make a fortune of their own. One of them, while running the store, also owned the town's train station. (I wonder if he ever met a McKernan). I know the store must have been the hub of such a tiny rural town, and made my family quite a nice lifestyle, by selling general goods, pharmaceuticals, and shoes. I think the business must've really picked up when they filed for a liquor license!
Another of my branches arrived in Massachusetts on The Mayflower, and subsequent sons and great grandsons remained in service to the sea. Another line seems to have spawned an abundance of protestant Ministers in a time when the church belonged to the king. Some family lines are full of farmers, general laborers, and clerks in various shops. But how endearing it is to discover a young Irish woman who taught music lessons out of her family home, all of her life. And how interesting to find the teacher who became the circus fat lady, and then retired as a seamstress.
How will you go down in the annals of family history?
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