Archaic occupation 1500s-1800s
What was a badger?
A badger was a licensed middleman who bought corn, butter, or fish in one market and carried it to sell in another. Badgers needed a licence from the county justices, and those licence lists survive in quarter sessions records with names and parishes. You will find the term in English records, mostly 1500s-1800s.
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FAQs
What is a badger in modern terms?+
A wholesale food dealer. Treat the match as a guide rather than a swap: tools and markets changed, so read the title against the record's own date (1500s-1800s).
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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