Do you have any ancestors who were indentured servants? (Indians, native, skin)

[Book Lover 21]

One of my was, someone even dug up a copy of the Servitude agreement! Awesome!

[Lorry Wolfe]

my family history says my great grandparents were both indentured to a quaker family in New Castle, DE circe 1886 when they arrived in this country. Fact + her birth date and subsequent events offer no proof of this . Just started working on this brance of the family.
Lorry Wolfe

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by Lorry Wolfe

my family history says my great grandparents were both indentured to a quaker family in New Castle, DE circe 1886 when they arrived in this country. Fact + her birth date and subsequent events offer no proof of this . Just started working on this brance of the family.
Lorry Wolfe

Apparently the Quakers kept very careful records which have been carefully preserved. If so, and you know the name and approximate time and where, they might have the information.

It was the most common way to come until after the revolution, so many many more are descendents of indentetured servants than suspect. If you have an ancestor in Virginia at the time of the revolution, then you have a one in three chance, as a full third of the population were directly related to those who came.

[Lucario]

Originally Posted by Lorry Wolfe

my family history says my great grandparents were both indentured to a quaker family in New Castle, DE circe 1886 when they arrived in this country. Fact + her birth date and subsequent events offer no proof of this . Just started working on this brance of the family.
Lorry Wolfe

1886? I don't think anyone was indentured in 1886...........

[bjh]

Correct. In what became the US the practice was fading out by the 1770s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant

[Randomdude]

I dont think I had any indentured servants, but I have one highly questionable branch (there is one big block that is being guessed at right now) that might have been tied to a manservant on the Mayflower.

[le roi]

Originally Posted by bjh

Do you have any ancestors who were indentured servants?

Where and when? What do you know about their lives?

Any female indentued servants you've found?

The two male brothers who carried my surname over to the U.S., were stowaways who became indentured upon arrival, in mid-1600's Virginia. (They died in Prince George / Amelia, VA).

The male who carried my mother's surname to the US was an indentured servant who arrived in Charleston in 1674.

As far as I can tell, this wasn't a major impedement to them, as they both passed on a tremendous amount of acreage to their kids.

[BIMBAM]

My Grandfather was an indentured servant in Holland in the 1920's, but only until he came of age and then he was free man. I got the impression that it was legal for his father to do what he did, which was that he sent his children, after the age of five, to work on far away farms until they were eighteen and he received some sum of money from this. I don't know if that was indentured servitude exactly, but I don't believe my grandfather had any choice in the matter as far as being able to leave the farm he and the other boys worked. Regardless, I think it was pretty immoral to treat children like farm animals to be bought and sold. He told me once about meeting an older brother of his on the road and not knowing who the man was. Very sad.

[foe3643]

Wow my great grandma in the 1900's was an indentured servent into the US and came to Ohio. No need looking to far back.

[nightbird47]

Originally Posted by bjh

Do you have any ancestors who were indentured servants?

Where and when? What do you know about their lives?

Any female indentued servants you've found?

I've written about it before, but found something extraordinary in the wee hours last night. I did a 'free' search which turned out to be Ancestry, and it was looking at shipping records. I found a few possible ancestors but what got me was the ones I knew about.

James and his brother William were small time theives in London in 1718. The family had relocated there from the rural areas before he was born. In 1718 the Transportation Act was passed, removing any 'voluntary' from an indenture. They had too many convicts and had to send them somewhere, so they were sent as cheap labor across the pond or anywhere they needed cheap labor.

He and William and William's customer were sentenced to transporation at the very end of 1718. They arrived in Maryland in March, which made them relatively lucky since they were probably not sickened by the gaols for long.

I found this out on the very last page of a search with 1991 records I skimmed through waiting for a dub to finish. But there were two things I didn't know.

One is a list of the first group of ships which sailed in the 'convict trade' and their cargo. I'd thought he might be but all three are listed. The second, the one on the last page, I'd never seen.

It's a disbirsment list of convicts arriving in this first group of ships. It took time to arrainge how to move them and it was contracted to the same people who traded africanan on the same ships. It lists the name, the date of offense and conviction, the term of the sentence and who they were sold to.

I realized that I hadn't really used that word. But it lists the name and that he was a planter and was in Maryland. It was a really striking moment since this opens a lot of things to look up. Where in Maryland? Was he one of the 'new elite' growing then, or small change? Did they try to run and is that why neither married nor went to Kentucky for twelve years? But its sobering too because the word is so final. For much of the time they'd force those caught in sweeps to put their mark on what truned into an indentrue as window dressing. No window dressing here.

I guess this means it worth skimming down a big long list sometimes.