Archaic occupation medieval-1800s
What was a paviour?
A paviour laid and rammed the stone paving of streets, yards, and footways. Also spelled pavior. Town improvement acts from the 1700s funded paving commissions whose minute books name the men they employed. You will find the term in British records, mostly medieval-1800s.
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FAQs
What is a paviour in modern terms?+
A paving contractor. Treat the match as a guide rather than a swap: tools and markets changed, so read the title against the record's own date (medieval-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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