To add my two cent's worth: In my readings about the town where many of my Bavarian ancestors came from, I came across the occupation of "Feldgeschworener." It seems that these men checked the boundaries of the fields and settled boundary disputes to make sure no one was plowing a tract of land that actually belonged to someone else. There were no fences, just stones marking where one property started and someone else's ended. Denise

<<I came across the occupation of "Feldgeschworener." It seems that these men checked the boundaries of the fields and settled boundary disputes to make sure no one was plowing a tract of land that actually belonged to someone else.>> Very true. But it would be wrong to believe that this was an "occupation" in the present sense of this word (German: "Beruf"). If one would look up the original sources, I think it would never say "Beruf" anywhere. Example: There are many entries that say "Hausbesitzer" = house owner. Or: "Bauer und Schiedsmann" = farmer and arbitrator. And so on. In other words: these characterizations were used to show the "status" of person with regard to both, his "real" occupation and his other merits and activities. Heinz