Daily AncestorClerk
A clerk did office or store work, keeping records, accounts and letters or serving customers; later census rules asked for a more exact title.
The word once meant a cleric or scholar, because medieval courts left writing to the clergy. By the 1800s it covered office workers and store assistants alike.
The 1870 and 1880 instructions said to write clerk in store, bank clerk, R.R. clerk and so on. From 1900 enumerators were told that a store employee who mainly sold goods was a salesman, and that a bookkeeper or cashier should be reported by that title rather than as a clerk.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1940 census
Edw. Lyle, 22, Clerk in store
Sources
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Clerk." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/clerk. Last checked 2026-10-10.