Archaic occupation 1500s-1800s
What was a wet nurse?
A wet nurse breastfed another woman's infant for pay, either living in or taking the child into her own cottage. Parish and foundling hospital accounts name wet nurses and the infants boarded with them, which can explain an extra baby in a census household. You will find the term in British and American records, mostly 1500s-1800s.
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Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
What is a wet nurse in modern terms?+
No direct equivalent. 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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