SOCI011 - ASSIGNMENT - Spring 2006 - Section 1

Released Tue 21 Feb; both parts of assignment (hard copy & electronic web form)
DUE on or before Tue 11 Apr at 4:45 PM (end of class)

The assignment will be scored on a maximum of 10 points, with each part (hard copy & electronic web form) contributing for 5 points

Each part of assignment will be separately penalized for lateness 1 point per class period (or fraction thereof) after due date

Please write your name and PID in the box below:

Your Ancestors and Their Occupations

In this assignment you will create a pedigree chart (i.e., a "family tree") of your ancestors up to your great-grandparents and record the principal occupation of each ancestor in addition to genealogical information (such as date and place of birth, marriage, and death).  Then you will submit some of this information in a web form so we can analyze the data for the class as a whole.

The assignment has two main purposes:

1. From a personal point of view, the assignment may help you establish a clearer picture of who your ancestors were, their places of origin (and thus, the languages they probably spoke), and their occupation.  You may also be able to check on some of the family lore: So you thought you were mainly Irish with a bit of Italian thrown in?  You may discover that your ancestry is in fact mostly Italian, with only a bit of Irish, and a mysterious Lebanese connection!  While you may not be very interested in your family history at this time, you should know that many people become interested in their family history at some point in their life.  The advantage of establishing your pedigree chart now is that you may have older relatives, such as grandparents and even great-grandparents, who are still alive and able to provide you with the information you need. The work you do now will be an invaluable starting point if you become interested in researching your family history later in life.  So we suggest that after you complete your pedigree chart you keep a copy of it in a safe place, perhaps with your passport or birth certificate, to use as a starting point for future research.
2. From the sociological point of view, the assignment will open a window on the huge impact of the industrial revolution on the occupational composition of the labor force, i.e. on the numbers of jobs of various kinds that people hold.  One way we will see this is by looking at trends in the kind of occupations (jobs) that the ancestors of students in the class have held over past generations.  By combining family histories for the whole class we will be able to see how the number of ancestors in different occupational categories changed over generations.  By comparing trends in occupations for ancestors of students in the class with trends in occupations for the US as a whole (from the census) we will also discover another startling pattern: ancestors of students who are at UNC today differed greatly from the contemporary US population with respect to occupational status, even as far back as the great-grandparents generation. 

General Instructions

To do the assignment you will work through the following steps.

• first print a copy of the assignment (this document); enter your name and PID in the box at the top
• establish your Individual Pedigree Chart -- see Step 1 below
• working on the hard (printed) copy of this document, use your Pedigree Chart to fill in the Family History Information Worksheet -- see Step 2 below
• go to this document on the web and use the information in the Family History Worksheet to complete and submit the Family History Webform by the due date -- see Step 3 below
• then, turn in by the due date (1) hard copy of Individual Pedigree Chart, (2) the hard copy of this whole document with completed Family History Information Worksheet

Step 1 -- Completing Your Individual Pedigree Chart

You will need to print a copy of

• Individual Pedigree Chart [pedig.pdf]

NOTE: the pedigree chart is a *.pdf file so you need a computer with Acrobat Reader installed.

For each parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent record on the chart

• full name (for married women use maiden name; if maiden name is not known enter first name only)
• date of birth
• place of birth
• date of death
• place of death
• marriage date and place (optional)
• up to two principal occupations of the person during his/her lifetime (EX: homemaker, elementary school teacher, paint sprayer, repaired radio sets, grocery checker, civil engineer, farmer, farm hand); if a person had two occupations and you cannot decide which was most important, write both occupations (under Occupation 1 and Occupation 2)

The information you provide on your pedigree chart will be used only in summary form (e.g., to calculate the percentage of ancestors with a certain occupation for the class as a whole) and only for the purpose of this assignment.  Personal information such as names of ancestors will be kept absolutely private and will not be used or kept by the instructor or TAs after the end of the semester.

Special situations you may encounter:

• You are reluctant, for any reason, to reveal information about one or several ancestors.  In that case leave the corresponding fields blank; the data will be considered "missing".  Providing your genealogical information is entirely voluntary.  You do not have to explain why information is missing to other people in the class or the instructors.  Not providing the information will not affect your score on the assignment.
• You are missing a piece of information. Don't make it up!  If you can make a reasonable guess, of a place or a date for example, enter that guess.  Otherwise just leave the field blank.  This unknown information will be considered "missing data".  Leave the corresponding fields blank both in the Worksheet (Step 2) and the Webform (Step 3). Your score on the assignment will not be affected by missing data. 
• You (or an ancestor) is adopted.  In that case, you choose which line of ancestors (adoptive or biological) you wish to pursue.  From the point of view of this assignment, it is better to pursue the line for which you have the best information, particularly on occupations.  But the choice is yours.
• Your parents (or other ancestors) are related.  If some of your ancestors are related you will find that the same person(s) appear(s) more than once in your pedigree chart.  For example, if your parents are first cousins, then one couple of great-grandparents will appear twice in your pedigree.  In that case, enter the repeated individual twice on the chart, as if they were different individuals.  (If you wonder about the rationale for doing this, it is akin to "sampling with replacement" among the ancestor generations.)
• You have a sibling in the class who is working on the same assignment.  In that case, you and your sibling should each turn in your own copy of the assignment (both hard copy and electronic parts) as if you were from different families.  Your family information will end up counted twice, and that's the way it should be.  (The rationale for this is the same as the previous special situation.)  You are of course more than welcome to collaborate with your sibling in establishing your common family history.

Step 2 -- Summarize Your Family History Information in the Worksheet

Notes:

1. SOSA is the "Sosa number" of your ancestor (named after 17th Century Spanish genealogist Gerome De Sosa).  It is the number of your ancestor on the Pedigree Chart.  For instance, you are number 1; your father is 2, your mother is 3, etc.  The SOSA number identifies your ancestor exactly.  Note that, except for yourself, men are always even and women always odd (!).  You should not modify this field.  Just make sure the SOSA number on the worksheet matches that on the pedigree chart.

2. Code for Sex: enter yourself as M (male) or F (female).

3. Code for place of birth.  Enter the numerical code for place of birth using the linked Place Codes list.

4. Code for occupation.  Enter the numerical code for each occupation corresponding to the best category in the linked Occupational Codes list.  (For the most part these are the occupational categories designed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2000.)  If you desire more details click on the link Occupational Codes with Detailed Occupations. If you have questions about which code to assign first contact TA Junko Shimazoe at shimazoe@email.unc.edu ; if the TA cannot help you then contact the instructor at francois_nielsen@unc.edu.

Step 3 -- Submit Worksheet Information on the Webform

Use the information from the Family History Worksheet you just completed to fill in the following webform.  Make sure that the SOSA number of your ancestor agrees with that on the pedigree chart and on the Family History Information Worksheet.  If information is missing, please leave the corresponding field blank (ie, do not write "don't know" or "not available" or anything else in the field).   For Occupation enter the code for up to two principal occupations.  (If your ancestor had only one occupation leave the Occupation 2 field blank.)  Then click the Submit button at the bottom of the form.  If you are successful a window with the word Success! will appear.  Make sure you also turn in the requested hard copies by the assignment due date and you are done!

Last modified 8 Mar 2006