>Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:17:48 -0800 >From: Dave Francis <dave.francis@sbcglobal.net> >Subject: [A-L] Occupation >Hi all, I have another French occupation which I can't figure out. If you take a look at http://www.dave-francis.com/Picture%20150%20copy.jpg you'll see part of a death registration, dated 1869, from Niederstinzel. The first word on the page is an occupation and appears to be "sicaire". The only translation I can find for sicaire is assassin. I find that hard to believe. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks. Hi Dave, I found your sicaire=hired assassin definition in a 1906 French-English dictionary, but - interestingly - not in my 1972 (French-French) Dictionnaire Bordas. What I did find in both, though, was a suaire=winding cloth/shroud/"linge pour essuyer la sueur (syn.: linceul)". I wonder if there might be a missing word at the bottom of the prior page; perhaps something that would indicate a "maker of" such shrouds? Or for that matter, is it possible the sicaire/suaire is the last part of a hyphenated word, with the first part at the bottom of the previous page? If you don't find some other DEFINITE option, I suggest you translate it as "hired assassin"; and note that there could be some other connotation to that "occupation" than the Lee Harvey Oswald that comes to my mind as an "assassin" --- for instance: a hangman? the guillotine blade-dropper (did he have an occupational title?), or in today's world: the switch-thrower or the person who does the hypodermic push? Good luck on this one....and thanks for bringing these interesting occupational decipher problems to the list. Cari Thomas