Archaic occupation 1800s-1900s
What was an ag lab?
Ag lab is the enumerator's abbreviation for agricultural labourer, a farm worker hired for wages rather than farming his own land. It is the single most common occupation in nineteenth-century English census returns, so treat it as a starting point rather than a dead end. You will find the term in English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish records, mostly 1800s-1900s.
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FAQs
What is an ag lab in modern terms?+
A farm worker. Treat the match as a guide rather than a swap: tools and markets changed, so read the title against the record's own date (1800s-1900s).
Why do census occupation columns use words nobody says now?+
Enumerators wrote down whatever the household told them, spelled by ear, and local trade slang went straight onto the form. Directories, apprenticeship papers, and wills often carry the fuller wording for the same person.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
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