In a message dated 5/10/2006 9:25:40 AM Mountain Standard Time, akibb1@verizon.net writes: A half-farmer means that he had a profession besides his farm. Usually they were butchers, bakers, innkeepers, etc. and also had a small farm holding. My ancestral family were large farmers but they were also blacksmiths.... mostly tool makers. They probably also made horseshoes if there were no farriers in their village. The word "half" can also refer to the size of a farmer's land-holding. Historically the word "Manor" was used to describe land holdings. A full manor was the largest holding and usually was associated with a Meierhof or very large farm, often owned by the local nobleman. A half-manor was also fairly large farm in terms of the "average" holding. A quarter-manor was on the large side of average. I don't have my notes on how these land-holdings equated to modern hectares of acres at my fingertips. There may be tables of old weights and measures on the Internet. Karen