Some of the strong themes in my family have included writing, photography, sailing and even computer technology. My maternal grandfather was taking photos early on his life. On my Dad's side there is a strong streak for sailing. One of my cousins has even made a career out of it by working for a yacht company.
Have you noticed any generational interests in an activity or a trade? Do you have a long line of amateur or professional musicians? How about firefighters? Maybe military service?
Tell me about the generations of interests and trades that your family has shared! I believe it's more common than we might think.
Photo: Copyright 2010 George Edwards. All Rights Reserved.
Mainly farmers but there were several carpenters, blacksmiths and even a couple of silver smths.........the pieces they created back in 1800 time period are still around and are in museums. Garrett Eoff and sons and grandsons were silver smiths in New York. They made their pieces out of coin silver. I have seen many many of their pieces for sale through antique dealers on Ebay.
ReplyDeleteI have a line of barbers and another line that did domestic work.
ReplyDeleteFarming, church, music, writing and medicine pop up a lot in my tree. Farming was prevalent on both sides of my tree. The church is a strong thread on my mom's side. We've had several preachers. In more recent generations, these include my grandmother and my aunt.
ReplyDeleteMusic is also strong on my mom's side. One of her uncles had a band. Another uncle and his wife are songwriters. A few of their songs have hit the top 10 on the country charts. My grandmother was church pianist as is my mom. My sisters and I all play instruments.
Writing pops up more recently. My paternal great grandmother wrote a weekly article for her local newspaper up until shortly before her death. My mom worked in journalism up until a few years ago. One of my sisters is a poet and I do freelance writing on the side.
Medicine is on both sides of the family, although more so on my maternal line. We have some doctors and nurses scattered through the line. Two of my aunts worked as nurse aides. One of my sisters has worked in health care, as have I.
Years ago I bought the high school yearbook for my grandfather's class on eBay. I learned he was a member of the History Club. Obviously, I'm into history, so I kinda got a kick out of that (although maybe he joined just to get girls...his senior quote was, "He dearly loves the lasses.")
ReplyDeletePhotography is what runs in my family. It's nice to see where my interest came from: Grandpa to Dad to me.
ReplyDeleteMy family seems to have its share of millers. My grandparents owned a sawmill that came from my great grandfather. Just since 1800, I've got grist mills -- fulling mills, strawboard paper mills, and sawmills, all in my direct lines. They've used water power through the regular wheels we think about first, and through a tidal tub mill. I descend from the first grist miller in New Haven Colony. Most recently, this job turns up frequently in my Mathews and Wells lines.
ReplyDeleteThat makes it easier to understand that I also have since 1900 accountants, mathematicians, physicists and engineers among my direct ancestors and cousins. My sister and nephew are so gifted in visualizing in 3D that they design telephony networks. A third cousin taught math at MIT and developed toroidal math. I cannot begin to twist my head around the 3D stuff they've done so that gene passed me over. But I can imagine that a gift like that would have been very useful to a millwright.