Teamster vs. Shoemaker: Correcting Henry Sheridan's Occupation

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Ok. It's a "make a choice" moment. 

Earlier this year I spent many hours researching the lives of Mary Jane Sheridan and her family. I gathered many sources, analyzed the evidence, and crafted her life narrative. I was really proud of the four-part series I wrote.

Except for one little fact: I got her father Henry Sheridan's occupation in Buffalo partly wrong. In Mary Jane's story, I based Henry's occupation on one city directory I'd found from 1851, where he was listed as a teamster in Buffalo's Hydraulics neighborhood. But the directories I found over the summer showed that from 1837 to 1844 Henry worked as a shoemaker/cordwainer. He was a teamster from 1848 to 1851, but that wasn't his whole story.

Even when I noted Henry's sudden occupation change to shoemaker when the family moved to North Evans, Erie Co., New York, about 1851, I didn't really question it. People can make a career change, right? Well, that was a little bit of presentism at work that I didn't see at the time. When I really think about it, I doubt that many men randomly changed careers—especially careers like a shoemaker—back when Henry was alive. That occupation took very specialized skills learned over time. My thinking now is that perhaps there was less of a need for shoemakers in the Hydraulics for those few years and Henry worked as a teamster until another opportunity came along to use his shoemaking skills. And that prompted his move to North Evans. It wasn't a career change necessarily. He was again applying the skills he honed earlier in Buffalo.

This point has been nagging at me since I got back from my research trip. My choice here is whether to leave Henry's Buffalo occupation as it is in my story, or own up to the mistake by reworking that section on Henry's occupation to reflect the reality I've since discovered. 

As a writer, I become attached to the words I've written and once I get them to where I want them it's hard to consider changing them. But as a family historian, I need to get the story right (to the best of my ability), or else what am I doing? I can't simply ignore what I've learned. 

This has been a really good reminder that as a researcher I need to not base my understanding on one document. I took that one directory entry and assumed that was all there was to Henry's Hydraulics career story, glossing over the leap in logic to him becoming a shoemaker all of a sudden. As a writer, I need to record the truth I know. 

I'll be revising the story. 

Until next time... 

© Nancy Gilbride Casey, 2025. All rights reserved.