Indentured Servants Question

Question

I have a question I am hoping someone might have some insight on about indentured servants.

Some of my ancestors came over from Inverness, Scotland in 1772, landing in Bladensburg, Maryland and served off an indenture somewhere in the area until 1786.

At that time all of the families (that came over together on the ship and served their indentured periods together(?) packed up and moved to Washington Co., PA, where they settled down and became founding families.

My questions are these:

1. Is there any way to find out (by court records or otherwise) where/to whom they might have been indentured?  Would something like that be recorded in court papers?

2. Is 14 years the standard time for an indentured servant to serve in the latter part of the 18th century in America?

Liz

aka/ Lizupatree

Answer 1

genealogydecoded.com/tag/maryland-indentured-servants/  here is some good reading on the subject, they are suggesting 7 years

Comments

Thank you, Rodney!

Answer 2

The normal time for Indenture was 7 years. As 1774 was long after the last Jacobite Rising, the most likely thing is that the people were general prisoners who were sentenced to transportation, usually as an alternative to being hanged.

I have looked at transportation papers to the American colonies in the past but they were all held in London and related to prisoners transported from English ports. It is worth noting that transportation to America ended in 1775.

Comments

Thanks Mark!  Interesting note of fact: several of the indentured servants were from the Sutherland family related to each other and later intermarried with the other families, including mine!  :)

Liz

Answer 3

In answer to your question regarding whether the indentured servants were sold at and to whom? I have some records that list exactly that. Land . court records  are harder to find. But, I might have some of them, too. I have a lot of transcribed colonial records of multiple types.

Answer 4

Hi Liz - you might find something here https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:British_Indentured_Servitude and/or you might be interested in joining our British Indentured Servitude Project  https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:British_Indentured_Servitude

If anyone has other resources on this subject please add to the page above.

Thanks,

Answer 5

I found 2 British Indentured servants in my Family. Ninian Beall indenture was because he was Prisoner of war.  John Shrimplin was made a indentured servant for crime theft. I think there different reasons how people became indentured. 

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Beall-75

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Shrimplin-59

Billie

Answer 6

Liz, this sounds like we are both looking for the same person. Do you have any information about what ship they arrived on in Bladensburg,MD?

Comments

No, I don't.  Who are you looking for?

Answer 7

Since there were so many members of the family, it is possible that some of them were working off the debt of the other family members.  Length of service would depend upon the cost the owner of the contract had taken on, and how much willing to give per year for the labor involved.

My family story includes a 7 year indenture/apprenticeship, but we are not sure if the contract included passage for the sister he supposedly brought with him.

Answer 8

In light of the comment of Jacobites sent ending before your time period, this book sounds interesting - might shed light on the types of records that may have information - but it seems unlikely to provide info about your family

https://books.google.com/books/about/To_Maryland_from_Overseas.html?id=9rB4AAAAMAAJ

"the contents of which range from abstracts of wills, deeds, patents, judgment records, pension records, and naturalizations to abstracts of private papers, visitations, and parish registers"

The other problem will be to find a copy of it...

ETA:

FS has a catalog entry, outside your time period, for indentures:

https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1449010?availability=Family%20History%20Library

This might imply that there could be records for other time periods.  They also have a link to the Maryland Register of Wills (the origin of those indenture records)

https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1803986

but would require a search of the records by hand.