Searching within records that contain our ancestors’ details can often indicate whether they worked for years at one job or changed occupations several times throughout their lives. We may find that they started out doing one thing and then over the years gravitated to another, altogether different occupation. I remember being excited when I started out researching to find that my ancestor had been a worker in H.M. Dockyard at Portsmouth. They had begun in their home town as a ropemaker, took this skill with them to the naval port, learned maritime competency and ended up back at home in charge of the then modern steam-powered railway ferry.

Another ancestor had tried a number of jobs, one of which was as a cycle agent in 1891, buying cycles from the manufacturer and selling them to the public. Never being able to find my own ancestor’s picture I was, nonetheless, struck by a photograph of a man outside a cycle shop in TheGenealogist’s Image Archive as it could at least give me an idea of the trade that my forebear may have carried out. Looking at pictures of people carrying out their occupations in a resource such as this can be really useful in aiding the researcher to understand the lives of their past family members. An important feature of the Image Archive is that underneath the picture a user may see the location of the image shown on a modern Google Map, along with a Street View of the place today. Researchers may also decide to click through to see the location on TheGenealogist’s Map Explorer, which makes use of a number of georeferenced maps both historical and modern.

I was intrigued enough by this particular image to want to find out a bit more about the man in the photo. What could I find about him in the records online? A glance at the photo gives us various clues as to the identity of the man who stands with a proprietorial air in the doorway. Apart from his name, E.J. Longman, displayed on the fascia board above the shop window, there is a number 63 in the window light over the door which we can use as a keyword in a search of the Trade, Residential and Telephone directories on TheGenealogist. The results are promising: we can see a location in Salisbury, Wiltshire for Ernest James Longman, a cycle agent and manufacturer. His address at 63 Fisherton Street all points to this being our man.

A search of directory records for later years shows us that by the time of the publication of the 1923 edition Mr Longman had now expanded his business to that of an automobile engineer while continuing as a cycle dealer and agent. By this time he now had the agency for some big-name motorcycle manufacturers and his address had changed to 97 Fisherton Street. We may guess that perhaps he had outgrown his original premises and moved down the road.

In some cases you may find an ancestor’s address appears to change when it is actually a case of the street being subject to renumbering. In this example, however, it appears that a move to a different location on the same road had occurred. Number 97 Fisherton Street had been listed in the 1901 census as a fishmonger’s shop next door to the King’s Arms public house; by 1911 it had become the Longman’s Cycle & Motor Engineers. TheGenealogist allows users to not only search for a person, but also to do family searches and address searches which is the one that is very useful in this case. It is also the only site which has connected the data from the 1911 census to the versatile Map Explorer. This novel feature allows researchers to pin down their ancestors’ properties on a contemporary map at the time of the census in 1911. With it family historians are able to walk the streets where their ancestors lived – not only can it be accessed on a computer but also on the move on a mobile phone.

The 1899 trade directory that we had already looked at earlier revealed that Ernest had set up his cycle business at 63 Fisherton Street. When the 1901 census was taken, Ernest, aged 30, was recorded living at this address. As well as tracing him forward to the 1911 census we are also able to find an entry for Ernest in the 1939 Register where, having reached the age of 71, he is by this time recorded as a garage proprietor.

The road back to his past
The census collection on TheGenealogist also allows us to follow Ernest Longman back to 1871, when he was a two-year-old child. In this period he was recorded as the son of Henry P. Longman, a farmer of 450 acres at Hurst Farm in Moreton, Dorset. Farmer Longman employed five men and four boys to work the land with him on this large farm. Tracing the household forward to 1881, and as we would expect, 12-year-old Ernest was now at school. The family had, however, moved to Moorhays Farm at Charlton Musgrove in neighbouring Somerset. Ernest’s father was now farming a smaller holding of 187 acres, which is still a medium-sized farm for the time, and he employed three men to help him.

In the next decade Ernest set out on his path that would eventually take him into the burgeoning motor trade. When the census enumerator came to collect the household’s return in 1891, Ernest was by now a skilled worker repairing and maintaining machines. The 22-year-old Ernest is recorded as a mechanic by trade, but perhaps the most interesting change is that Henry, previously a farmer, has now become a coal merchant in Wilton in Wiltshire.

In his sixties Henry Parsons Longman, our cycle dealer’s father, was recorded as a Salisbury shopkeeper by the census enumerator in 1901. We may wonder if this is the same man; the beauty of tracking a person through the census records is that we can use their birth place and date as a cross-reference each time. Henry was born in Lydlinch, Dorset and if we also use the name and place of his wife Eliza’s birth details (Corby, Wiltshire), then in 1911 we are able to see that they are retired and living in Salisbury. The odd inclusion, written in blue ink, of ‘Police’ in brackets before the word ‘Pensioner’ is strange and I haven’t got to the bottom of it as we know from following him in the records that Henry had been a farmer, a coal merchant and then a shopkeeper.

Dorset back to Somerset
By using the information that Henry Parsons Longman was born in Lydlinch, Dorset in 1837 we can then use those details as part of our search criteria to discover the grandparents of our cycle agent. In 1861, for example, a search of this census will enable us to find 24-year—old Henry listed as a farmer’s son in Chaldon Herring, a village not very far from Dorchester. His parents appear to be Moses and Ann Longman and again by going back through the census we can see that Moses farmed in Dorset over the years. In 1841 he was at Blackrow farm in Lydlinch, but by 1851 he was the farmer at Owermoigne and in 1861 Chaldon Herring, which are a few miles apart and so may just reflect the growing nature of his landholding.

One of the useful and unique record sets available to researchers on TheGenealogist is the National Tithe Record collection. By using this resource we are able to discover where Moses Longman had been the farmer at the time that the surveyors for the Tithe Commissioners carried out their work in response to the introduction of the Tithe Commutation Act 1836. The aim of this law was to commute tithe payments previously paid in kind into a monetary payment. From our point of view it is invaluable as we are able to discover what land an ancestor may have owned or occupied at the time. Tithe records on TheGenealogist include images of the apportionment books that detail the type of land as well as the size of the holding, and in the case of Moses Longman we are able to discover that he is recorded as the occupier of Blackrow and Rodmoor farm. These particular tithe records were compiled in June 1840 for the area of Lydlinch, Dorset. This information adds to what the 1841 census had revealed to us in the earlier search where he was recorded living in Blackrow Farm. Now with the aid of the tithe apportionment schedules we are able to understand that Moses was not restricted to just the one farm on which he lived.

The tithe records on TheGenealogist have links to the tithe plot maps and because they may also be viewed superimposed over historical Ordnance Survey maps and modern street maps using TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer tool, we are quickly able to see where it was in the county that Moses Longman had once lived and worked.

If we were interested to see what the environment looked like today we would only have to select one of the modern street or satellite maps in order to view the current landscape.

A search of the birth and baptism records on TheGenealogist discovers that Moses was the son of William and Lydia Longman as his baptismal record appears in the Somerset parish of Horsington for April 1801. Their marriage is likewise recorded in the same parish records for 9 January 1797.

With the right tools you can follow a family’s location and their working lives through time.

The records and the mapping tools on TheGenealogist have allowed us to track the Longmans from Wiltshire, to Dorset and even earlier in the past to Somerset.

We have been able to see how this family changed occupations several times throughout their lives and find various maps that helped us understand the places that the Longman family had lived in the south-west of England.