Hi Al Those are interesting thoughts you have, but I'm not sure how far you can take them. In my family, I have a whole line of blacksmiths from father to son, and a line of millers, but I think these would be particular professions likely to stay in the family. Among farming folk, a bit of luck and industry (at least in certain periods) could bring you up from farm servant to prosperous tenant farmer quite quickly, and a bit of bad luck could bring you tumbling down again. Then I have an instance of a factory owner whose eldest son turns up as a weaver, while a younger son seems to have taken over the family business - maybe a family quarrel can lead to a sudden change in circumstances. Since you seem to have a particular interest in the railways, it's worth remembering that they only really started up in the 1840s and they would have been the equivalent then of internet startups today - all sorts of people from different backgrounds might have poured in. My g-g-grandfather started as a railway clerk and later became a stationmaster. One of his sons became a stationmaster, another an engine driver, a third a pullman car attendant. His brother, though, only made it to porter before quitting and joining the post office. Their father had been a grocer and, prior to that a joiner, and HIS father and grandfather had been masons. Then the engine-driver, my g-grandfather, sent his sons to a fairly upmarket school. One of them became Steward of Edinburgh Jail, the other a humble clerk. I really don't think there's a lot you can predict, at least in urban societies. And to whoever said this didn't belong on the list - go and join another one if you don't like it. It's perfectly legitimate genealogy-connected invetsigation. Cheers Alan