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Sequence analysis was originally invented by biologists with the aim of com-paring DNA sequences in order to find out to what extent two DNA strands are homologous to each other or, in other words, to determine the distance between them (Kruskal 1983). The established degree of similarity then allows for conclusions about a common ancestor of two DNA strands. The initial utilization of sequence analysis in sociology was made in the 1980s, with Andrew Abbott’s work on musicians ’ careers and ritual dances (Abbott 1983; Abbott and Forrest 1986). Here, sequence analysis was seen as a more qualitative tool in the context of historical, narrative sociology. Due to the limited capacity of computers, analysis was restricted to only a few cases with short sequences. With increasing technological development in the 1990s, researchers began to focus on individual sequences, such as class careers (Halpin and Chan 1998), employment biographies (Abbott and
Brzinsky-Fay et al. (Mon,) studied this question.