Daily AncestorSlater
A slater laid slate roofs, splitting and nailing the stone shingles onto buildings; the word can also mean a worker who quarried slate.
A slater, or slate mason, covered roofs with slate, using a one-piece slater's hammer to cut slates, punch nail holes and drive nails, and a long ripper to remove broken pieces.
Slater can also describe a worker who dug slate, as in the Slate Belt of eastern Pennsylvania, so check whether the census place is a quarry town before deciding which kind of slater you have.
As seen in a recordOccupation column of the 1850 to 1900 census
Hugh Pritchard, 33, Slater, Wales
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Daily Ancestor. "Slater." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/slater. Last checked 2026-10-10.