Ag labs - Genealogists' Forum

Asa · #1 03-04-13, 09:09

Isn't it wonderful when you get something a little bit more precise? I sometimes get farm labourers or carter and occasionally a gamekeeper or bailiff but mostly, like everyone else, I just get Ag Lab. I've just revisited a 4 x great grandmother on the 1861 after a long time and have realised it says she was widow of a corn porter - my ancestor has now been taken out of the realms of the bland and I can vaguely visualise him doing something!

Olde Crone · #2 03-04-13, 10:46

Asa

My 3 x GGF is on the census described as an Ag lab. I was quite startled therefore, to get a copy of his will and discover that he owned nearly 1000 acres of farmland!

OC

Asa · #3 03-04-13, 11:08

Blimey, OC - I've had one or two who've crossed over (both ways) but that's a lot of land for an Ag Lab to end up with. I suppose either he remained humble of the enumerator wasn't impressed...

#4 03-04-13, 15:11

You must have inherited a pile. Can you spare a fiver for a mere ag lab descendant?

Margaret in Burton · #5 03-04-13, 17:08

My great great grandfather was always Ag Lab on census, on his son's birth cert he is a Husbandman, which I think means he worked with the animals on the farm.

ElizabethHerts · #6 03-04-13, 18:05

I have seen ag labs and farmers in abundance on my tree, but my recent research has uncovered ancestors in Buckinghamshire who are described as dairymen. In the 1700s they seemed to do pretty well, but after 1800 it appears this occupation didn't reap such good rewards.

Shona · #7 03-04-13, 18:33

I've got a few 'cow boys'. Yee-ha!

Olde Crone · #8 03-04-13, 22:04

I have a feeling he was telling the census enumerator to mind his own business! Either that, or the enumerator decided to take him down a few pegs, lol.

OC

Nell · #9 06-04-13, 09:48

Asa

I do agree. "Ag lab" is a catch-all for people who helped put food on the table of millions. I do have a game-keeper, a cowman, an oxman and a husbandman in my tree which is a bit more precise. I also have one Gloucestershire gt x 3 grandmother who is listed as an ag lab on the census. I'm sure many other women also worked in the fields but it just wasn't recorded.

It was a precarious job though, not much work in the winter, very physical and nothing if you were injured or unwell. However, I think the physical exercise, fresh air and no doubt access to fresh veg is why so many of my ag labs lived well into their 80s and beyond.

Asa · #10 06-04-13, 11:14

I've got a cowboy! I forgot about him

Nell, I think you're probably right about the long lives they could achieve. Although, I have got a dircet ancestor who died falling from a haystack at the age of 66 so it had its perils:-)