Sometimes an occupation on an historical record can bring you up short. Whilst researching genealogy all sorts of odd terms crop up, and this week it was the occupation of a county "cess collector" on a birth certificate.
First thoughts turned to sewage, as in the more familiar "cesspit" but that did not feel right for the research. In fact, the term "cess" is used to mean rate or tax, and comes from the word "assessment", and so the father of this child was the local rate collector.