My favorite go-to resource when trying to decipher a word for an ancestor's occupation is European Roots Genealogy's "List of Old German Professions." It's a great resource because it not only has a pretty extensive list of word variations used for these occupations/professions, but it also groups them by similar occupations which can help us better understand the different terms that may have been used for our ancestors' professions. Ernest Thode's German - English Genealogical Dictionary is also a great source for searching for occupation terms in both German & Latin. Another good resource to keep in mind is Wörterbuchnetz.de, wich is a digital network of dictionaries in several languages - mainly of the German language, including Old and Middle High German and various dialects, but also including Luxembourgish and Middle Latin. Wörterbuchnetz has sometimes helped us to decipher the meanings of some of the less common occupations which might not be listed in other resources.
It is interesting to learn what our ancestors' occupations were, which can help us better understand what kind of lives they lived. And determining our ancestors' occupations is one important way to differentiate between different individuals with the same name: when there were two men with the same name living in the same town, it can be tricky to figure out which one is "your" man. (Especially when it seems like most every man in the town happened to be name Johannes or Hanns, and most every woman was named either Maria Anna or Anna Maria). 😉 Say, for example, that you have a record that lists your ancestor, Johannes Schmidt, and says that he was a 'Lehrer,' or teacher. You want to find more records about him at a later time in his life, but you find that there are records for two different Johannes Schmidts living in the town at the time who were around the same age. One way you may be able to determine which one is "your Johannes," is to look at his occupation. Our Bohemian ancestors were very unlikely to make major changes to their occupations, especially for craftsmen after going through the years-long apprentice/journeyman/master process. So if you take a look at the different records about the two different Johannes Schmidts and see that one was a 'Cantor,' and the other one was a 'Strumpfwirkermeister,' you may wonder if either of these men was "your Johannes" because neither of them was listed as a 'Lehrer' or teacher. Until you learn that a 'Strumpfwirkermeister' was a master stocking knitter and a 'Cantor' was a choir director & school master - and you see that it is logical that a teacher may have later become a school master. And if you continue to search for more records, you find that this Johannes Schmidt was also listed as a 'Kapellmeister,' or choir master, in later records. It's very unlikely that a school teacher would have completely changed occupations and become a master stocking knitter, so gaining an understanding of our ancestors' occupations can sometimes be a reliable way to determine which individuals in the town were in fact our ancestors.
You will likely come across the words "-meister" meaning master, or "-gesell" meaning journeyman along with the words for different occupations, which described different levels of occupations in the guild system. In Bohemia, as in Germany, many of our ancestors may have been part of the guild system. Guilds were associations of tradesmen or merchants which served to train new tradesmen, determined which members of the guild had attained 'master' status, controlled the number of tradesmen allowed to work in a specific trade within a town, and protected trade secrets & the guild's interests. Guilds may have even controlled who their guild member's children were allowed to marry (it's very unlikely that a Master "Guilds operated on the apprentice, journeyman, and master principle. A young man was assigned to work with a master for several years. During this time, he learned the basics of the trade. After the apprentice attained a certain level of knowledge and skill, he was promoted to journeyman. At this time, he was to travel the land in search of masters in his field for whom he could work and from whom he could learn the requisite skills to become a master himself. When he completed his journeyman time with appropriate skill and knowledge, he would be promoted to master. This was an important step. He could then set up his own shop and work in his field" (from FamilySearch's page on "Guilds in Germany," here). It is helpful for genealogists to have a basic understanding of the guild system, to understand that our ancestors in these trades may have been apprenticed as a boy, then moved from town to town working as a journeyman as a young man, before settling down and opening a business after becoming a master craftsman. Interestingly, this is where the word "Masterpiece" originated, meaning the "work by which a craftsman attains the rank of master." So before the guild would allow a journeyman to become a master, he was first required to create a piece that proved his competence in his trade. And it's not that unusual as we research our ancestors to find that a journeyman ended up marrying the daughter of the master tradesman, settling down in the town, and working in that trade as a master himself after his father in law retired. So words like "gesell" (journeyman) and "meister" (master) can be clues to help us follow our ancestors through these stages of their lives.
I've compiled a list with some of the occupations, translations, & examples of the handwritten words for these occupations that we've come across in various old Bohemian & German records:
