LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS-L Archives
Archiver > LOWER-DELMARVA-ROOTS > 2007-01 > 1169217031
From:
Subject: Re: [LDR] Indentures in Delaware
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 09:30:31 EST
In a message dated 1/19/2007 9:09:20 AM Eastern Standard Time,
writes:
> When someone was apprenticed to learn a trade in Sussex County, were any
> records kept of this? Where would they have been? Accomack did do that
> (keep
> records), so I wonder if Delaware and/or Maryland did so as well.
In provincial Maryland many indentures can be found in the Land Records
(Deeds), where the terms and conditions are laid out explicitly. But, as for slave
sales, mortgages, leases and other forms of private contract, the practice of
recording such things was discretionary and irregular. Only a small fraction
of the indentures appear to have been documented this way, but it was the
"correct" way.
Wills occasionally direct that minor sons (and more rarely, daughters) are to
be bound out, and for what. Court records in Somerset also include a fair
number of issue resolutions relating to indentures not otherwise documented.
Issues might include the apprentice being used as a field hand rather than
trained as a wheelwright, or whatever, or complaints around period of service.
One can also back in to an informed guess on undocumented indentures
indirectly in Somerset, thanks to the 1723-59 tax rolls. If a young man is enumerated
for a few years outside his own family to someone identifiable as a
blacksmith, and later becomes a blacksmith himself, you have a smoking gun.
John
This thread: