Your poll doesn’t go far back enough. I can count four or five generations back to get to farmers from three of my grandparents and five to go back to fishermen going through my mum’s dad.
My dad grew up on a working farm. One of his brothers took it over when their dad retired from it. One of the other brothers works a farm and B&B on the other side of the mountain. We used to spend time up at each during summers when I was a kid.
My grandparents owned a farm in Eagle Bend, Minn. My father wanted nothing to do with farming, so he ran off to join the Navy. Strangely enough, he was the only one of 6 siblings to go back and help out when my grandfather had health issues.
My maternal grandmother may have been born on a farm, though she came to the US when she was five. Supposedly, her family were farmers in Romania, but we haven’t been able to find out much about that.
Other than that, none of my grandparents and their parents appear to have been farmers.
My cousin did some research on Ancestry.com, and I used his research to do something I’ve always wanted to do: trace my ancestry back, strictly patrilineally, up to and including my ancestor who first crossed the Atlantic.
Some interesting findings. First, after decades of thinking I was of British descent, it turns out that, if one only considers the father’s line, I’m actually German. Second, the family name changed immediately after the voyage from Germany to here. My ancestor was Jacob Meier when he got on the ship; his son through whom my line descended was Johanne [my last name]. Apparently the family was fleeing persecution, or legal problems, or something. Third, and most importantly (to this thread, anyway), is that, best as I can tell, we’re completely devoid of farmers, at least on this side of the Pond. Dad’s a layabout; his dad was a garbage man; his dad was a coal miner, as was his father, etc. Until we get back to Germany, where we were… farmers.
“Other” because it’s farther back than grandparents, but I do know. My great-grandparents, the Irish ones, had their own farm and it wasn’t a hobby for them.
My maternal maternal great grandparents owned a farm in Lithuania. They emigrated in 1898 and had arranged, so they thought, to buy a farm in Swarthmore, PA. Somehow, they were swindled out of their money and ended up in West Philadelphia which is where both my mother and I were born and raised. Actually, I just remember my GGmother; she died when I was 6 and I remember the big old house she lived in.
My mother grew up on a farm, but got the hell out of there as soon as she could and moved to the big city, where she met my father.
Years later, my father borrowed a shotgun to go on a hunting trip. When he brought it home, my mother shouldered it and sighted down the barrel. My father yelled at her to put it down and she said, “Do you think I never used a gun when I was growing up?”
My father was speechless.
My dad grew up on a working farm. It wasn’t a family farm, they rented. Kansas during the dust bowl. Both of his parents came from farming families. At least one uncle remained a farmer until he died. (A recent conversation with my dad on the subject of “noodling” elicited the information that while *he *never hand fished, a neighbour of his did. He thought said neighbour was nuts. This amused me.)
My mom’s mom grew up on a farm, and I believe my mom spent many of her summers at the family farm while growing up.
I can only say with certainty that no ancestor of mine has ever farmed within the United States. All of my immigrant great-grandparents moved directly to large cities. I don’t know how long it had been since any of them farmed before leaving Europe; that information never got passed down as family lore.
My grandfather’s nephew (my first cousin once removed?) FINALLY sold the family farm a couple years ago. I don’t know when it was last worked, but I know Gramps made tracks for the Big City back in the Noughties. Er, the previous Noughties, not the one we finished a couple years back.
My father grew up on a working farm, but his dad didn’t work there. It was a family farm and my grandfather and all his brothers and sisters lived there, in different houses with their families. My grandfather worked in the steel mills (near Pittsburgh) and his siblings ran the farm.
My husband grew up on a working farm, but they sold it and moved to the suburbs when he entered high school. That was also the first time he lived in a house with indoor plumbing.
I only know with certainty as far back as my grandparents, none of whom were farmers or even grew up on farms. It’s possible (if not probable) that my paternal grandmother’s parents (who emigrated here from Ireland at the very end of the 19th century) had farming backgrounds, but I know nothing about them.
My wife’s paternal family are mostly farmers; her father grew up on a farm, her grandfather was a tractor salesman, as well as being a farmer, and many of her cousins and uncles are still farming.
My dad grew up on a working farm. His dad also drilled wells and did some butchering, but dairy and row cropping was their main source of income. Of my dad and his brothers, our family truck farmed when I was growing up, but Dad and Mom made the bulk of their living working in the auto industry. My dad’s younger brother row cropped the family farm while working at the same plant as Dad.
Mom’s parents were town dwellers until WWII, when they moved to my g-grandmother’s farm. Pop continued to work at the flour mill, but they raised goats, chickens, pigs, a cow, rabbits and hay.
My ex and I experimented with hobby farming (he was raised on a substinance farm in eastern KY, but his dad also worked in the mines). We raised goats, pigs, chickens, geese, ducks, a burro and a huge garden while working in the auto industry and a foundry.
I voted parents, FWIW.
What I wanted to know too. I grew up on a cattle ranch. I could ride twenty miles before I could walk five!
And…the very first chance I got, I got OUT of there and went into computers!
As far as I know, all of my ancestors at least 4 generations back were town or city folk. There were farmers on the edges of the family but not in my direct line.
My great grandparents came over on a boat in the 20th century and worked the steel mills.
No idea if they left a farm behind in Europe. I’m guessing probably not.
Oddly enough my grandfather married a farm woman when my grandma died, and moved from the city to Amish country when he was in his 60s. So my grandparents are farmers of sort, and I grew up around a farm, but it was never part of my family (it all belongs to and is worked by new grandma’s family).
I don’t know much very far back on my dad’s side of the family, . Both his parents (my grandparents) are dead, so I can’t ask. I do know my grandpa immigrated from Germany as a child, and my grandmother was born in Indiana. Neither of them were ever farmers (he worked in the steel mills, she was a homemaker), but I don’t know about their parents or grandparents.
I *do *know that my mother’s mother’s parents (my great-grandparents) weren’t farmers. My great-grandpa was a railroad engineer in the military, and his wife was a homemaker. I don’t know anything specific further back than that, although I’ve been told that that side of my family was among the first US settlers in Virginia (my mom’s mom was very into genealogy). So I’m sure I have some farmer-blood somewhere, seeing as how most of the old US settlers were farmers out of necessity… I just don’t know when.
I sense a wonderful story here. Kids take responsibility so seriously; it can shape them. Could you develop this? (Especially bringing in the binoculors.)
I was going to bring up, and An Arky voiced, that from generations back people have needed for somebody on the farm to have an outside job in order to make it. Something not “crop productive” dependent. As a young girl, my best/closet girlfriends’ daddy was a tenant farmer, but also a deputy sheriff, which paid the bills. Also, my husband’s grandfather farmed but dug and sold 'sang (gensing) for cash money. My step-father was a railroad engineer and still worked almost 150 acres. Sometimes the side-line occupation took precedence, but it was done in conjunction with keeping the farm.