The question was, did cabinet makers tend also to be undertakers? The answer, I believe, is yes and over quite a long time period too. >From about 1750 to 1850, anyway this seems to have been common. I have two lines which contain joiners/cabinet makers who became undertakers. It is logical. In this time period, nothing really was done to preserve the body, the main requirement was a coffin, which would have been prepared by the area's cabinet maker. Other than that there would have been preparation of the body - cleaning and dressing and so on and the preparation of the burial site. These two tasks could have been performed by most any one. Horizontal integration as an economist would say? Back to my people - one was supposed to have conducted the first funeral at Charles Evans Cemetery in Reading. Good Hunting, Clarke