How many generations since your last peasant/farmer ancestor?

[flash9286]

Grandfather on my mother's side worked on a farm picking cotton before he joined the Army. Great-grandfather on my father's side was a farmer.

[Al B. Sure!]

Two for me, if you count my Grandfather who owned a ranch. Three otherwise.

I think it's hilarious that Al has such distinguished ancestors and yet lives in a ghetto in Philly.

Ehh... the American Dream

[Ben Kenobi]

You're like Pygmalion, in reverse!

[giblets]

You're like Pygmalion, in reverse!

That's retarded. Being a poor person with wealthy ancestors is not analogous to turning a woman into a statue.

[Ben Kenobi]

He's Bizarro Horatio Alger!

Maybe Gribbler will get that one.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Hm. The closest that I can think of going back to the 18th century was a great-grandfather who was Cherokee, but that gets into some problematic definitions. Other than that, my ancestors have mostly been tradesmen.

[Provost Harrison]

God knows, paternal grandfather's side were fishermen (being from Hull), maternal grandfather's side were industrialists, maternal grandmothers side were all industrial workers all the way back and my paternal grandmother's were Geordies...probably something to do with coal mining. Nothing agricultural as far as I can tell even back into the 19th century...so probably not until before the industrial era.

[Flubber]

Does being a "fisher" count?? One grandfather worked as a "share-man" on a fishing boat that went up to Labrador. Think "share-cropper" and you get the basic idea except that everyone shared in the total catch and the owner wasn't some absentee but was the captain of the boat.



No farmers out to the great grandparent level but farms were relatively uncommon in Newfoundland (except most everyone had a small garden for personal consumption) and the peasant types were mainly fisherman in that it was traditionally the default occupation.

[Dauphin]

My dad's side of the family were labourers on farms until about 1910, at which point they left Cambridgeshire for a new life elsewhere - so my paternal grandfather would have been a labourer but for that move (he was born around then). Instead he looked after livestock for a few years before WW2 came knockin' - based on his expertise he looked after donkey power supply routes in Palestine, Eqypt and that general area of the world - after the war he went to work in a factory whilst my dad's mum was a civil servant. My mum's dad was a milkman, butcher and other such things you got from local stores back in the 50's. My dad was the first university graduate on either side of the family.

[Provost Harrison]

Yeah, there are very few graduates in my family. On my mothers side I have a cousin who graduated from the University of Humberside, but personally I don't think that counts, especially as it was in social studies!

[notyoueither]

Mothers father homesteaded in Alberta ~100 years ago. He came from an agricultural community in Ontario that started from UEL's.

Mother's mother was a farm girl from Saskatchewan with a Scotish background.

Father's family is French and had been running around the woods for God knows how long. Someone with his name was around at the founding of Quebec. By the time my father came along his family was fairly prosperous in an agricultural community in North-Central Alberta.

Thus, both mother and father came from farming backgrounds. Mother went to university, became a teacher and then stayed in the city.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Peasant farmer. Interesting terminology.

My father was a farmer and I worked the farm growing up. He was also a PhD degreed biology professor. Now as a retired college professor he still works the farm. Does that make him a farmer, a peasant, or a peasant farmer?

Prior to Dad achieving his college bona fides his father (my grandfather) was a 9th grade graduate who worked his own family farm.

So it could be me, my father or my grandfather depending on the definition. Peasant is such a European concept.

[notyoueither]

I'm a peasant farmer. Going out to harvest a crop right now in fact. (eggplant, not peasants... they don't germinate well when you plant their seed)

That seed might make good fertilizer in small amounts.

[Al B. Sure!]

Yeah, there are very few graduates in my family. On my mothers side I have a cousin who graduated from the University of Humberside, but personally I don't think that counts, especially as it was in social studies!

Interesting how recent some of your family success is. With only a bachelors from a public university, I'm actually the least educated in my immediate family. My father has a J.S.D. and he re-married a professor. His mother is also a (retired) educator. My mother has only a bachelors but from a more prestigious university than myself.

All my uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. on both sides of my family have at least an undergraduate education.

[Dinner]

More then five at least. We're city slickers.

Mom's side: Mother was an HR manager, grandmother was a house wife (I honestly don't know further on that grandmother's side), Grandfather went to USC, was a fighter pilot in WW2 and later because middle management in the insurance industry, great grandfather worked for his father's electrical lighting company in Chicago, great great grandfather started a neon lighting company in Chicago & had the contract to make neon budweiser signs for the state of Illinois. I honestly don't know what any of the women did before becoming house wives.

Dad's side: Dad is an electrical engineer, his dad was originally a coal miner in the 1930's but later owned his own painting company, great grandfather was a mechanic working on steam engines as was his father.