Daily AncestorShepherd
A shepherd tended, herded, fed and guarded flocks of sheep, often living out with the flock on the range or in the hills.
Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations. A shepherd moved the flock to grazing and guarded it from predators and theft; a woman in the work was a shepherdess. The word comes from Old English for sheep and herder.
The 1900 census instructions told enumerators to return a stock herder separately from a stock raiser, so a hired shepherd and the owner of the sheep should appear under different titles.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1900 to 1920 census
Pedro Echeverria, 31, Sheep herder, Spain
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Shepherd." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/shepherd. Last checked 2026-10-10.