anyone have a tip to find old professional licenses?

[mopinko]

my grandpa and my ggrandpa were both farriers in chicago. ggramps had a blacksmith's shop. i think the biz might go back 1 more generation aw well. that would be the guy who came here for ireland in that branch of the fam.
gramps was 14 when he died, and tried to take it over, but couldnt cut it.
so he made his living as a farrier. i think they would have needed licenses. that would tell me where the shop was, etc.

as i started to post this thread i remembered that uic has a huge collection of early municipal records. so, i hit them up, chatted w a librarian who couldnt find anything. he suggested i send an email to the special collections librarian, which i did.

i have no idea if there even was a license required for those trades in those years. but a farriers license is a thing. if not that, hoping they will find some business records.

anyone ever used this kind of record to fill out your story?

[Frasier Balzov]

1. Equine podiatry.

This Wikipedia article states that farriery is not regulated in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrier

[mopinko]

2. yeah, it's a big issue now.

there are a bunch of credentials that are in use. but apparently freedum.
but they are a thing that has existed in some places and times.
i'm looking at the early days of chicago. no idea how many trades/businesses were regulated, but in a horse drawn economy, farriers were a big deal. things might have still been wild and woolie here when ggreat gramps got here but by the next generation, we were working hard on being civilized here.

if nothing else i might find a business record w an address. unlikely anything is still standing.
this is a fun branch of the tree to look at, cuz this is the 1st ones who came here, and they settled where i am. maybe before chicago was even a city.

[Frasier Balzov]

3. There's a free collection of the Lakeside Directory at this link:

https://chicagogenealogy.com/find-chicago-city-directories.html

[Backseat Driver]

4. The Great Chicago Fire may hamper your record/map/name search

Worshipful Company of Farriers (historian)? https://www.wcf.org.uk/
https://www.heartlandhorseshoeing.com/blog/ (?)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/chicago-built-back-from-the-great-fire-in-just-two-years-now-150-years-later-the-city-finds-itself-at-another-crossroads/ar-AAORsZe


[snip] All of that would very nearly go up in smoke on Oct. 8, 1871.

The Chicago Fire started at about 9 p.m. on Sunday, in or near the barn behind Catherine O’Leary’s small wooden cottage at what was then 137 DeKoven St. It spread quickly on strong southwest winds through the densely packed neighborhood of Irish immigrants, overwhelming a late-responding fire department and engulfing wide swaths of the city in a relentless inferno.

It burned for two days, destroying 17,450 buildings, scorching more than three square miles and displacing 100,000 people — nearly a third of Chicago’s population — before it ran out of real estate and was finally extinguished by rain. About 300 people died in the Great Chicago Fire, which caused $200 million in property damage — billions in current dollars — reducing the city’s downtown and much of the North Side to ashes. [snip]

[mopinko]

5. yeah, 1st gen prolly lost. but gramps was born in 1879.

good point tho.

i think they were out on the west side, pretty far out from the center. at least, the ones i know of now were.